David Swiger


Last Updated: June16, 1999

10/29/97

I'm a 33 yr. old man on the ultimate quest for self. I've been practicing Reiki for 2 years and teaching it for 1. I'm studying Occupational Therapy. I recognized my destiny to become a healer just over 2 years ago and am intrigued at how the understanding of healing and spiritual understanding keep supporting one another in my life. The concept of eating raw foods exclusively is something I've never considered until today. I'm curious to learn the facts as well as the perspectives. I welcome contact from anyone with ideas about healing and self maintenance in the physical, intellectual, emotional, and/or spiritual realm.

Created on 11/11/97

I am born. No, No, that was David Copperfield.

I don't want to bore the reader but I must begin with how bad my diet was before I learned what I know today.

I was raised with the bottle. My mother meant well by following the advice of Dr. Spock (not Star Trek). She used KARO syrup and cows milk as the formula.

I also remember that as a growing child I could have only one piece of fruit a day.

Other than that my diet was pretty good until we were able to afford a TV about the time I began 4th grade (1954). That was the beginning of my dietetic downfall. I had to have the box cereals that were advertised on the kid shows. Especially those on Saturday morning. Rice Krispies (sp), Raisin Bran, Post Toasties, Sugar Pops, Cocoa Puffs, etc. These were my favorites foods.

As I got older I switched to chocolate milk and toast (white bread of course) as my staple breakfast food.

At other times it was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Plus I learned to love candy. I loaded up around the holidays with all the candy I could get my hands on. Halloween was my favorite holiday. As I got older, my treat bag got bigger and bigger.

All of this had a definite toll on my body. My teeth started going bad, my complexion got bad with the typical teenage pimples, my eyes went bad to where I needed glasses by the time I was a senior in high school to get my drivers license, and I developed a severe case of dandruff that would quit.

One other thing I should mention to top it all off was that the older I got the more of a candy-holic I became. I remember at age 12 that I was envious of a friend of mine because he had a paper route. He used the extra money he made to buy some of his own clothes but he could also buy whatever candy he wanted. Well, this I had to have. So the first opportunity that I had I bought into a paper route and began to be able to buy any candy I desired. But even before this time I was an expert in candy and had tried about everything that was available.

How I even survived my childhood I don't know, but I guess our bodies can take a lot of abuse.

It wasn't until I was about 25 years old that I learned that there may actually be a connection between what we eat and the diseases we get - especially the chronic ones. I also learned that the standard American diet was actually bad for you.

I began to learn though a church that I joined that there was a better way to eat. They taught the importance of whole foods such as whole grain bread and whole raw milk (certified), fruits and vegetables, and eliminating sugar , salt, and white flour products. This was the beginning of my recovery but the damage had already been done to my body and I am still suffering the consequences today.

Sometime in the 1980's I believe I began to read Paul Braggs books starting with the one about the bad state of our water supply and the advantages of distilled water. Other books followed, including Arnold Ehrets books on the mucusless diet and fasting. These I just couldn't believe at first. How could anyone live on such a diet?

Then I found the book that began to make it all click into place. Humbart Santillo's (sp) book on the enzyme factor in foods was the first of many books that I found that actually began to flesh in the picture of what the true human diet should be.

The research of Paul Bragg and others into the diets of primitive peoples around the world who were as yet untouched by the foods of the "civilized" cultures of the world had the one thing in common. The primitive peoples around the world that enjoyed the best health had a diet that was all or mostly RAW! It didn't seem to matter whether they were primarily fruit eaters, or fruit, poi, and fish eaters, or whether they were primarily meat eaters like the Eskimos. The important thing was that they always only had access to raw or mostly raw foods.

The more the foods of civilization began to be introduced to these primitive peoples, the more they began to experience the diseases of the civilized part of the world. E.g. the Eskimos that lived close to the white mans trading posts began to get dental caries and other diseases of the white man.

Now I had to read voraciously about actual people who had begun to eat a raw or mostly raw diet and what the results had been. I went back and re-read the books by Arnold Ehret and the Ehret Publishing Company. This time they actually made sense knowing what I now knew about the raw diet.

The next big breakthru for me anyway was when I finally found the book "Blatant Raw Foodist Propaganda" by Joe Alexander. This was when I began to learn about the existence of the small but active group of people who consider themselves to be primarily raw fooders. I began to learn that what I had been reading about form many who were long dead was true and that there were many others who had picked up the baton, so to speak, to carry on by putting into practice the truth they had been learning even as I had.

It wasn't until I had access to the internet that I finally was able to get in contact with others who were like me in wanting to learn more about this new world of the raw food diet and how to do it without fearing the consequences.

I began to put into practice what I had learned by starting a transition diet. I slowly started eating less meat and less cooked foods in general.

I have reached a plateau of maybe 85% raw. Being in a family situation where I must help cook the family meals and help buy the groceries, I often end up eating some of the cooked foods because they are there. If they weren't so available I probably would be at a higher percent of raw. Nevertheless I have gotten off of bread which I thought I would never be able to do, and raw cheese, and even baked potatoes I don't need anymore.

Instead, I am eating more fruit and more green foods like spinach and lettuces as well as drinking carrot juice (or some carrot juice combination).

My goal now is to increase the amount of juicy fruits in my diet.

I am a computer programmer with a wife and two grown daughters (still at home going to school).



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