This is recently from a very real client of mine:

-If there was one burning question I wish you could address in your blog for everyone, it would be to clarify this:

If we are suppose to be raw plant eaters, why is there so much success with the primal, Weston A. Price sort of diet for hunter/gatherer societies through history, and for gut or immune challenged people. It seems like we all really need certain animal foods. Then there is the whole paleo/autoimmune movement, saying grains cause leaky gut and block our minerals--is it true? And yet I know these centenarians in the Blue Zones pretty much eat vegetarian, and they're all eating beans. Tom Brady won the super bowl on a plant-based diet.

Is it because they didn't have stress, vaccines, antibiotics, drugs, and were never sick in the first place? meanwhile the rest of us cannot even live in a Blue Zone?

Wow! Talk about the question on so many people's minds! This is such a beautiful, complete way to ask this question.

This patient has the chronic, modern condition. That is to say that she is inflamed, holding fluid, gut is totally wrecked, she probably can be diagnosed with a variety of abnormal bacteria and various infestations of other microbes living in her sick tissues and fluids. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON????

I realize this issue is loaded in that many people have attached their personal value to being right about the opinion they have voiced, or they have created explanations and justifications for their position to try to persuade their clients that their recommendations are correct. This naturally creates a loss of objectivity on the subject. Everyone is impassioned on the subject.

Those who know me well, know that I have a knack for sorting through information and finding what is useful and understanding why. I realized early in life that I had that ability. This by no means means I am infallible, but there is no question, I tend to recognize what is true and I am able to sort through information quickly. Additionally, I am a keen observer of nature and my clients. I watch their responses and notice how they are doing. I know what is working where and I notice earlier than they do if the path they are on is creating new problems. Finally, I have no small amount of formal education--one doctoral degree and more than the equivalent of another one. On top of that, I am a voracious student, studying all the time.

Those assertions about myself, and the fact that reading my articles should illustrate a commitment to stating what really is, rather than what I wish was, is all I can offer as a reassurance that what I am saying can be trusted. If this is not sufficient for you, by all means study whatever you trust and go on your own journey. Our journey's are bigger than the problems of this life and you have the right--as do I--to take your own. I just want to help as much as I can those who enter my sphere of influence.

So, here is my answer:

First, it is important to understand that in the healing arts, we can divide what we do into the "IDEAL" and the "EXPEDIENT."

Ideal is, of course, ideal! The human body is not supposed to be sick. It is not supposed to age in any way that is remotely like we are doing today. We should not have any troubles with reproduction, development, blood chemistry, pregnancy, delivery, joints, etc. Frankly, we should even get injured far less than we do. Social problems are primarily caused by deep irritation in our bodies and that should not be happening. Selfishness is driven by fear of loss and sense of loss comes from weakness in the body and mind. These things should not be happening. We should age gracefully. Instead of old age diseases, we should be experiencing changes in the seasons of life, but seasons are not sick... Instead, as we age we should be changing, but not becoming infirm. Life should go on brightly until the very end and then we should pass on to the next life fairly quietly and quickly.

Idealism includes the idea that if we start doing ideal things--instead of expedient or compulsive or desperate things--we will gradually become what we are designed to be. Idealism requires that outside influences are not destroying the planet and the normal function of things...

Expediency is all about doing what has to be done to get the sick person to keep working at their job, keep living their lifestyle, keep doing whatever they both want and are stuck with day after day so that they can support their families, their habits and their dreams.

Expediency, as it relates to health, is a matter of manipulation of a sick system in some way so that it can still function. It may not function tolerably, but it does not stop...hopefully.

The disagreement highlighted by my patient can essentially be traced to the fact that the expedient practitioners just don't want to admit that they are expedient, rather than ideal. It irks them and grates on their consciences. To feel okay about what they do, they need to push the idea that they are ideal and the idealists must just be wrong. They cite examples (which are abundant) of those who did not get well following an "ideal" plan (diet, supplements, exercise, whatever) who did better with an expedient diet (or whatever). Unfortunately, expedient does not become ideal just because someone announces that it is so. Just because you found relief only through a particular type of diet, exercise or supplement does not mean that you are living the ideal lifestyle. In fact, in the modern world, you are probably living the expedient lifestyle.

The problem arises when a person wants to move toward idealism and they find that expediency has developed a dogma and that dogma is in the way of moving forward! Practitioners insist and assert all sorts of things to keep you from leaving their advice (I mean, God forbid that they discover you did better on the ideal program, I mean, where would their self-esteem end up after such a travesty).

Also, many expedient steps (such as removing a vital organ, or getting a transplant where heavy drugs must be used forever) absolutely sabotage any future with the ideal path. Further, some less severe examples exist where injuries to normal function occur on expedient diets and supplements such that recovery, while not impossible, is much harder.

I would like to here suggest that openness and honesty about expediency will help the practitioner watch for and prevent expedient approaches which will damage a future of idealism.

Here also I will note that much of the hostility of natural healing practitioners toward the current medical profession is fueled by the medical profession's apparent flagrant disregard for the value of idealism and real health. Indeed, some choices, like pushing vaccinations, clearly undermine a future in ideal living by damaging forever any normal immune response and by promoting cancer and autoimmune disease. These are not empty accusations. Rather vast data accumulated from official medical sources (peer-reviewed journals and CDC and WHO studies and information, official government-employed researchers) support these assertions.

So this friction is old. The confusion of the lay person is not new. I hope what I say next will help with that.

High protein, ketogenic, animal-based diets are all about manipulating the metabolism. Let us be honest, in the modern world were we eat loads of processed food, sugar and chemicals compulsively, we are manipulating metabolism already. We are forcing stimulation into our bodies often, perhaps hourly. Manipulating the metabolism in a better direction which helps heal some of the problems of our day and diet, is reasonable. It is not ideal and one does not experience ideal health by doing them, no matter what the advertisments say! But you can manage metabolism that way.

In my practice, I actually teach how to do both the ideal diet and the expedient (metabolic manipulation) diet. Metabolic manipulation only looks better when people are terribly sick. We are that.

Humans have never been wise with diet. Very old texts show discussions about diet through prophets with God. The people rapidly gravitated toward terrible diets full of stimulation, excess and addiction. The slightest exposure to an addictive food sucked them in and they began to be compulsive, sick and self-destructive. Of those eating such a diet (which was nearly everyone, in every part of the planet), the healthier ones stuck to whole food and managed to develop a tradition of consuming dense nutrition regularly. They ate traditional superfoods. From this emerged the research of Westin A. Price. He discovered what was working best and found that the bread-eaters usually had dental and other health decay. The only exceptions were those who sprouted and then fermented their grains. He discovered several superfoods, some of which were reasonably available in the modern world. He recommended some of them later. But understand, he never found anyone eating an ideal human diet. He simply found those who lived much healthier. They all had issues, but they kept their health through avoiding loss of nutrition. They had traditions of living that way.

Unfortunately, no such society exists on the planet today. None existed then which lived on wholly natural, raw plant food. Consequently, no follow-up study can be done and no study at all can be done of those living on ideal food multi-generationally.

We do have some excellent information available, however. Further, if done correctly, anyone can experience the shift toward ideal health. One generation will not get rid of our health problems. Some research into this (with animals) exists and demonstrates that 3 generations is required to restore ideal health. But, we can experience the shift. Westin A. Price was a brilliant and honest researcher and his program works. However, anyone familiar with it and the literature about it knows that it does not work anywhere near as well as it used to. No one is getting the results they should be. This is not because something is missing, but because there are things being done systematically to our world (worse in the United States) which (and perhaps to) destroy our health and the health of plants grown on any soil under the sun. Chemical offgassing from synthetics and various herbacides and pesticides are adding to the problem, destroying all normalcy with hormones. The path to idealism is being obscured desperately.

With that in mind, we can easily recognize, I hope, that, for many, manipulating metabolism so that life can just continue might be the best approach--at least initially. I have found that gradually a person might heal enough to shift back towards idealism. They might not, in this generation, be able to do it cavalierly, without thought to systems and strategy. Instead, certainly those moving toward idealism need to understand the problems of our day and how to manage them with an ideal diet and lifestyle. I have written much about this and continue to do so. I have found some strategies which are at least approaching idealism recently in Poland, where the people are, I can attest, much healthier than we are and they are beautiful and rewarding to work with because they respond as they should to natural therapies and diet. This will come later. What I wish to point out now is that it is going to be work no matter what you do and if you are very sick, you probably will have to start with expediency, rather than idealism. Whatever you do, do not let ignorant, uncultivated practitioners who just want to be right convince you that their way is the way.

Here is my answer, which I affirm as clearly as I know how:

1. No one should be eating processed food or supplements. Do not do it. If it is not whole and natural enough that you could make it in a cave, do not eat it at all. Be very careful about this. ALL SUCH SUPPLEMENTS AND FOODS WILL DEPLETE YOUR BODY OF OTHER THINGS TO USE THEM! This includes vitamin supplements, which contain chemically isolated vitamins, often derived from petroleum.

2. Humans are designed to eat exclusively raw, plant food. We certainly do better on some types than others, but we have no adaptations which suggest we are designed to consume any animal products regularly. A number of unavoidable problems arise when we attempt to do so. The fact that those problems are eclipsed with the severe problems in the modern world does not mean they are not present.

3. Experience has taught us that in times of shortage and when our bodies are in desperate need of restoration of nutrients, animal products will save us and often will restore us using the nutrition and vitality of the animal. Sometimes the qualities of plants are not welcomed because the tissues are so incredibly weak. As we restore vitality, however, the next step to health will be to fill the gut with lightly cooked or raw plant roughage from robust vegetables (a minority of seeds may be used, but sparingly in the beginning).

I use regularly a diet rich in animal foods in my practice and I followed such a diet for 8 years after a very difficult time in my life that left me depleted and sick. I am very supportive of such diets if they are wisely done. My practice includes many animal-based supplements which I would hate to be without. However, not for a second do I believe that this is the ideal plan and when the patient is ready, they need to switch to a largely or exclusively plant-based diet. With wisdom and instruction? Yes, of course. You need to understand the modern problem and what to do about it. But definitely plant-based is superior when you are ready. The human gut cannot EVER be normal without being full of plant roughage for our micribiome to grow on. But getting the gut to start healing might very well require an abundance of animal fat and bone broth and organ meats and the like. I just invite us to be honest and honorable. Plenty of excellent information exists which will make it painfully obvious that humans are made for raw plant food, not animal food. But to use animal food expediently is probably vital at the moment in our world's history.