Irritants can cause Vitamin Deficiencies

This post may be a little redundant and sound a bit like the one about our obsession with detoxing, but it's taken from a slightly different angle.

We get vitamin deficiences three ways: not taking enough in through the diet by eating processed foods like white flour, cola, sugar and coffee; eating an imbalanced diet such as mono-mealing for indefinite periods of time that eats foods high in some nutrients but not high in or deficient in others, and the third way which we will discuss today: eating foods that irritate the digestive system which cause the body to use it's own minerals to excrete it, or the digestive system is damaged by the irritant and thus is unable to absorb the nutrients that may be adequate in the diet, but are unable to be absorbed.

Here is an interesting paragraph from the late TC Fry:

All kinds of stresses are vitamin antagonists. Drugs are serious stress producers in the body because the body must exercise great effort in expelling them as quickly as possible, lest they damage tissues and cells and interfere too much with normal functioning. In addition, surgery, accidents, overly exhausting work or exercise, exposure to extreme's of heat or cold, and emotions such as fear, hatred, anger, worry and grief all produce great stress on the body. The B vitamins (thiamin, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid and vitamin B12) and vitamin C, as well as proteins and minerals, are all depleted and/or unassimilable as a result of stresses on the body. But don't think for a minute that the other vitamins can be properly or fully utilized when the body is under stress—they can't!

So stress is a big "irritant" of the system and makes great demands upon the body's reserves, but so are other foods that stress the body. Here is a paragraph from David Klein's newsletter:

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton warned: “Hardening and thickening of the tissues occurs in any and all parts of the body to resist constant irritation. This can be seen in the mouth, stomach and intestines of those who employ salt and condiments.” Dr. V. Virginia Vetrano cautioned: “Inorganic table salt itself irritates the lining of the arteries and predisposes to atherosclerosis.”

(I have been unable to verify if there is actually sand in sodium chloride--when I googled it, I couldn't find anything, so if you have any information on this, I would be grateful if you could share it)

Which items rank as the worst irritants in modern diets? Here’s my short list (there are many others): pepper; salt; vinegar; alcohol; oregano; curry spices; chile pepper; garlic; onion; leek; scallion; shallot; chives; radish; mustard paste; mustard leaf; arugula; coffee; cola; charred meat. Note that if we ingest a mouthful of many of those items, our nerves will scream with pain, while the other more deceptive items are palatable only after we have forced ourselves (or were forced in childhood) to “get used to” them. Also note that most of those are stimulants which leave us physically and mentally depressed after the “high” wears off, as the body expends a great amount of energy attempting to eliminate them and repair the damage. Unfortunately, many health enthusiasts, even rawfooders, have been taught that salt, spices and pungent herbs are needed to enhance the flavor of recipes, and most indulgers end up sick most of the time and do not understand why and they accept that as “normal”!

So, how does the body respond to “deal with” irritants which enter the stomach and bloodstream? If we are fortunate enough to still have ample vitality, the body will protect itself with any and all of these intelligent responses: watering eyes; hypersalivation; mucus secretion; vomiting; sneezing; coughing; expectoration; sweating; skin suppurations (pimples, rashes, boils); increased heart rate, blood pressure, urination, defecation and menstruation; and the so-called “immune system” (which is really our “defense system”) springing into action and working so hard that our body temperature rises to feverish heights as toxins are broken down and neutralized for elimination. All these are self-purification processes which we must learn to trust and support without interference!

When reading that list, there are a LOT of foods that wind up in vegan cooked and raw diets. All of them are caustic however, and you can tell you are damaging the body just by observing: when chopping up onions, our eyes tear from the oils and our noses start running. Oftentimes our noses run after eating spicy Indian food or Mexican salsa with hot chili peppers.

When we do this to our bodies, in it's attempt to protect itself, it secretes mucous which in turn makes it difficult for us to absorb our nutrients. We are TOX-ing our bodies with these substances which prevents us from getting the most out of our nutrition.

When we think of children, the descriptive words that come to mind are delicate and fragile. How often to you hear of parents feeding their children coffee, vinegar, salt, hot chili peppers, pepper, radishes, onions and alcohol?

We don't. In fact, babies will give us instant feedback by spitting it out and crinkling their noses at us if we attempted to feed it to them.

We need to enter into a loving and protective relationship with our bodies and be very selective about which foods we let in.

Many people have been inspired by the movie "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" do start the New Year off with a juice cleanse.

This is wonderful. Lives are being changed and many people are getting healthy and thin this way.

However, upon purusing some videos on Youtube, past juice feasters have often gained the weight they lost after ending the juice cleanse because they didn't educate themselves on the right way to eat and then change their eating habits after their cleanse.

Eating a raw vegan diet without stimulants or irritants will maintain whatever health gain or weight loss you've worked so hard to achieve and will keep you young, vibrant and healthy well into your golden years.

I still highly recommend you continue your daily juicing, however, one must come to terms with the fact that permanent eating changes are in order to maintain their hard-earned results.