In this article, Paul Nison shares the raw food facts that live from bananas to blood work. Paul Nison is a chef and raw food educator. He is also the author of seven books, including “The Raw Life.”
Kevin: One of the questions asked was: “Is it bad to eat six or seven bananas in one day?” Many of the questions concerned tall fruit. You mentioned that tall fruit might not be the best idea, but if you’re eating some fruit, what are the best fruits to eat?
Pablo: Well, it depends on each person’s situation, each person’s occupation, etc. and also what else you are eating during the day. If someone is not on a completely raw diet and much of their diet is processed sugar, fruit could put them on top. But if someone is eating a fairly good diet like the Hippocratic lifestyle, with lots of vegetables in their diet, eating fruits will be fine. Obviously, a desk worker will need less than someone athletic. There is no one answer for everyone, that is the big problem that exists. Many people say that there is an answer for everyone.
I have to warn people that there are a lot of people today on this 80/10/10 diet. The problem with the 80/10/10 diet… I actually think it’s a great balance, but the problem is how much people use on it. They are using much more than we need. If someone was eating small amounts of fruit and very small amounts of fat, that’s fine. But people, I think, are overeating. They are eating much more than they need. They don’t understand that when the body becomes cleaner you can live with less. I don’t like counting calories, but if we do this the right way, we don’t need to eat 8, 9, 10 bananas a day, no matter who we are and no matter what our lifestyle is.
Someone could certainly enjoy the fruit. I am not against fruit. I am against overeating. That is the problem people have today. They constantly overeat. Nobody likes the taste of fruit more than I do, but I know that eating too much fruit is not good for you. Fred Bisci told me about all the natural hygienists of the past that he knows of when I met him. He told me how much fruit they ate and how it was not good. I said, “I’d like to interview them,” because he was interviewing people for my book. He said, “You can’t interview them because they’re all dead now.” I said, “Did they have a long life?” He said no.”
Then I met William Esther, who is a great man who practiced temperance and many other things. I met him and asked him, “Do you ever fast?” He said no.” I asked him why and he said, “I don’t need to do it. I don’t overeat.” I said, “What do you eat?” He told me what he eats and it wasn’t much. It was a great interview. He was a hygienist who ate fruit, believed in fruit, but didn’t overdo it. It’s the biggest problem and the problem I’m talking about in my new book “The Daylight Diet.” People can’t stop eating all night.
Kevin: Well, I have you. What about the complete opposite: high-fat?
Pablo: Same answer: all individual situations. An Eskimo living in an igloo is going to need a different diet than someone living in the tropics where I am. Too much is too much no matter where you are in the world. It depends on our situation. I think exercising and exercising more just so I can eat more, I think it’s another type of eating disorder. We don’t need as much and the high fat content is another problem in the raw food movement. Many raw food meals are made with nuts and seeds and all these other fats now. A raw vegetable fat is digested much better than a cooked fat of any kind, but people still abuse fats. We have to find what works for us on an individual level. The problem I find is that too many people look at raw food and say, “This guy said this” and “This guy said that.”
There is only one true way to know if something works for us or not, from a physical point of view. That’s to check our blood work. I think people neglect this too much in the raw food movement. They talk about what they think is best, but they don’t look at their own blood tests, which really tell us what works and what doesn’t work for us. There are a lot of different variables that come into play besides diet that can affect our chemistry and everything else. But if our blood work is checked and things are working fine, what we’re doing is working for us. Now, is that going to work for the next person? Maybe not. But the best way to keep monitoring it is by looking at our blood work.
Kevin: That’s a great point Paul. I usually never interject my opinions in interviews, but I recommend anyone listening to listen to what Paul just said at the last minute or so. It’s so important. Now, how do you recommend that someone test his blood? What is the best way you think?
Pablo: Well, doctors, believe it or not, have a great way of taking blood tests, but the problem is that they don’t know how to read blood tests. Everyone can be too high on something and you can be perfectly fine, but a doctor will say you’re low because the average person is too high. So you really have to go to someone who can read and understand these tests.
I have been very blessed to find Dr. Shandel, here in Hollywood, Florida. He has an extensive longevity blood profile test and a cancer blood profile test. He has his lab right on his premises. He has a complete set of tests that I think it’s important for everyone to check. But to get everyone started, you take the basic chemical blood profile tests and that will tell you the basics. Then, if there’s something fishy in there, you can start getting more of the expensive evidence. My best advice to anyone is if you have drug insurance – I don’t call it health insurance, I call it drug insurance because it pays for drugs, not health – go to your doctor and say, “I want to get tested for every possible cover my insurance. If something is deficient in your body, some warning signs will show up on those tests.
Another way is if you get a signal that something might be wrong, like if you’re low on a certain nutrient, you might have chapped lips or a rash or something else, poor memory. If you know that has something to do with a deficiency in something, get tested for that particular nutrient and see if your levels are okay.
You should also understand that all vitamins, minerals, and nutrients work synergistically. So just because one thing is perfect, we have to look at both ends of the spectrum here. For example, with vitamin B12 some people might be fine, but homocystine might be too high and we would need to address that. If we have low levels of vitamin B12, homocystine could increase. A good person who knows how to read this, Brian Clement, Gabriel Cousins, Dr. T from Equalpolitan in Minnesota, and Dr. Shandel, these are people who know how to read this. Anyone can get their blood test and mail it to these people and do a consultation over the phone. So I recommend that you check your blood work once or twice a year and then take the appropriate measures.
Kevin: What do you think of vitamin D?
Pablo: I see the biggest problem, from a nutritional or clinical point of view today, and Hippocrates confirms it. I worked very closely with the Hippocrates Health Institute. I am very blessed to be a great friend of Brian Clement and now teach at the Institute. They have more tests, studies, results and information than anyone in the world. They have been doing this for over 50 years. They discovered, and every other raw food doctor has confirmed, that vitamin B12 and vitamin D are a big deal in the raw food movement, or indeed any current movement, when it comes to nutrition. People are suffering from deficiencies. So we definitely need to address these.
I would definitely recommend supplementing these two areas and monitoring them closely. I also have to say that I was blessed, my friend Rick Dina and Karen Dina, stayed with me because they were in town with me for Raw Summit. They are two doctors that I would recommend that people go to in a heartbeat. Not only do they know as much as the other people I mentioned about clinical trials and how to read them, but they are probably easier to get in touch with. They have great information out there and they are going to put out a book next year. They teach at the Living Light Culinary School in Fort Bragg. Rick Dina and Karen Dina are excellent sources for finding blood tests. I have had great conversations with them. I wouldn’t give someone a high recommendation unless I knew that to be true. These people I mention are definitely people I recommend you get in touch with.
I wouldn’t listen to people who are very charismatic but really have no idea about this. There are a lot of people out there promoting raw junk food, claiming to be the brightest and smartest raw food leaders in the world, but they wouldn’t know how to read a blood test if someone gave them the information right in front of them. They just don’t know what they’re doing and they get a lot of people in trouble. So we really have to show discernment about who we go to and what we do.
