Hi there!

I wanted to share this wonderful article with you.
It has brought me great peace and has helped me clarify some great confusion I've had over the last 2 years!

When we decided to homeschool, I realized an additional advantage to having my children w/me was that I could optimize their nutrition for growth, learning, and health.   I started researching like crazy to understand the holistic approach to health and return to a simpler, less-invasive approach to daily health care.

And I encountered a lot of ideas, of course!
A lot of them rang-true to me, even when they were contradictory!
So, it set my head spinning and I've had an internal conflict about it ever since . . .
My goal, ultimately, is for us to have stellar immune systems, minimal symptoms (as a result of minimal core problems), and for us to truly enjoy what we eat and how we live.   Why?   So health is not an issue that stands in the way . . . so it never gets in-between us and our dreams . . .

The main confusion I've had was in this:   RAW vs. COOKED foods
I see the wisdom of both.   Raw foodists say one thing.   Cooked foodists say another.
Both say great things with lots of truth in them.
So, I started to incorporate as much raw as possible and still only achieved about 60% or so . . .
The other 40%, I would try to cook Sally Fallon & Weston Price Foundation style w/fermented foods . . .
(and, we would not restrict ourselves from eating-out as our schedules demanded)
A main goal was to "aim high, but not to be idealistic or maniac-al" . . . it doesn't feel healthy to obsess about food and so I haven't held myself to standards of perfection and never wanted to become labeled as following one certain way and judging all the other approaches as inferior . . .

Still, I have been confused and had a fair-amount of food guilt . . . which is a negative energy I long to leave behind.
Well, this article did it for me!      I feel liberated . . . hope you enjoy this, too!  

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/05/01/raw-food-diets-part-two.aspx

Quoted Text

When Eating Raw Food Becomes an Obsession

Unfortunately, it’s not always just about the nutrition.
All too often raw food converts (just as some advocates of other radical dietary protocols)
possess a near frenzied religious fervor, attaching spiritual, puritanical,
even moralistic significance to the virtues of their "superior" 100 percent raw, vegan or vegetable-food diet.

Coined "Orthorexia Nervosa" in Health Food Junkies by Dr. Steven Bratman and David Knight,
this phenomena has been personally observed within numerous healthy food communities.
Unfortunately, it ends up being dysfunctional and unsustainable,
reflecting obsessive need to control and to be right,
with a bottom line that essentially makes the enjoyment of eating into a guilty vice.

It’s highly counterproductive, dissociative and unhealthy
(especially for the greater conscious community of people who are waking up about the truth in food and agriculture)
for various food and dietary philosophies to be in a constant game of superiority and one-upmanship.

Even worse is exclusionism - continuing to maintain a "WE HAVE THE ONLY WAY" type of attitude.
This is just as bad as religious wars.

No Single Diet is Right for Everyone

Those of us who are working toward healthier food and lifestyles need to recognize
that no single diet is right for everyone all the time and start looking for areas of common agreement.
Instead of competing within ourselves, we need to communicate and cooperate to create more unifying action,
to put our energy and focus into asserting and proactively fighting for our rights for good, clean healthy food and environment.

The fact is:   No ONE food plan is right for everyone all the time
- except that it is becoming painfully obvious that contemporary "One-Size-Fits-All" Diets are out.
They just do not work for everyone.

Each of us is unique.
Each person has a distinct biochemical individuality, a unique metabolic type and profile that is ours alone.
If we listen, our body and our self will communicate what we need to stay in balance.

Ah, doesn't that make you feel better?

With positive energy behind your efforts & intentions, your best really IS good enough!  

Quoted Text

Given the Proper Nutrients, The Body Will Heal Itself

Everything in nature strives toward balance.
The body is constructed so that if it is given the right nutrients,
its systems will put them where they are needed and the body will heal itself, affirms Dr. William B. Ferril, M.D.
The body possesses an innate healing mechanism that is always trying to nudge us
back to a state of equilibrium, a state of health.
We are not machines that need repairmen.
We can heal ourselves, if we pay attention and become aware;
if we give ourselves the chance’ if we listen to our bodies and that deeper part of ourselves.

Hippocrates’ ‘HEAL THYSELF’ doesn’t apply just to physicians.
Each of us has a healer within.
Thy food shall be thy medicine and thy medicine shall be thy food.

Or a more contemporary version from Gabriel Cousens:
"With the proper diet, no doctor is necessary.
With the improper diet, no doctor can help."

Instead of thinking "raw foods versus cooked foods," this diet or that philosophy is better,
it’s probably closer to the truth to focus on getting a BALANCE of raw and cooked foods,
depending upon the season, climate, your health, level of spiritual evolution, etc.

So, in the final analysis, the truth in the "raw versus cooked" debate probably lies somewhere in the balance.