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Natural Hygiene
July 12, 2008
Natural hygiene is a way of self-care that is as close to nature as possible. Food is eaten in a natural state, fresh, unheated, with little or no processing. If any grooming products other than pure water are used, they are from raw plant sources and unadulterated with chemicals. Natural fibers are worn on the body, and used for the bed. Practices such as sunning and sleeping outdoors are highly valued. Indoor environments are kept free of toxins.
Historically, natural hygiene has been practiced through most of human history. Something happened within the last 200 years to estrange the industrialized culture from the nature that sustains us. Today's natural hygiene movement is all about getting back to nature.
Using nontoxic products on the body is important because the skin absorbs whatever is put on it. Unless utilizable as food, grooming products must be removed from the body by the organs of elimination, just as if they had been eaten. Bathing with pure water is also important because the chlorine compounds in tap water affect the skin. They also enter the bloodstream through the skin, but being volatile, even more is taken in through the lungs.
Usually soaps are not really necessary, as water washes. Blades of grass and leaves of herbs help to clean skin if it is dirty. A loofa or a cloth can be used to scrub where necessary. Rubbing a fresh herb such as sage or fennel against the skin will leave a pleasant odor. The germ theory is not proven. There may not be any infectious particles that are killed by soap and not by plain water. The soap commercials paid for lots of television and radio programming, and it is possible that we have all been brain-washed. Cleanliness and a pleasant aroma are important. Being "germ-free" is a farce.
The skin has a slightly acid pH, whereas soaps are alkaline. Neutralizing the skin's acid mantle with soap is not conducive to health. Additionally, many so-called antiseptic soaps are spiked with rubbing alcohol, a poison. Baby wipes and similar products also contain this unnatural, toxic alcohol. Ethanol can be used instead with far less toxicity, but is not commercially available in the form of wipes. A more natural wipe can be made from water, white wine and paper towels. Of course this would not be for everyone, just one step better than commercial wipes with isopropyl alcohol. Best is nothing but pure water.
Not everyone is happy with the way their hair comes out when washed in nothing but water. I, for one, prefer a wash with a strong homemade vinegar (a higher concentration of acetic acid than that commercially available.) Allowing a mixture of 1 cup of sugar and 3 quarts of water to ferment for about a month will yield a concentrated vinegar that will clean my hair and leave it nicely conditioned. I apply the vinegar to my hair, rub it in and let it soak for about 10 minutes before rinsing it out.
The hygienic diet is generally high in fruit, as fruit are body cleansers. Fruit particles should not be allowed to remain on or between the teeth for long after eating because they can contribute to tooth decay. A thorough rinse with water may be sufficient. However, if you already have pockets of decay in your teeth from a former diet of pastries, breads, sodas and cooked meat, it is certainly important to ensure that the teeth are hygienically cleaned after each meal. Hydrogen peroxide is pleasant to use on a toothbrush. It cleans teeth and disinfects decaying areas enough to prevent further decay if used routinely, along with abstinence from cooked or unnatural foods. Food grade hydrogen peroxide 3% or so with water works well.
Dishes are adequately disinfected with hot tap water. You can use hydrogen peroxide if you're not sure. Detergents leave a residue behind that will be eaten with the next meal. Greasy plates and bowls don't exist in a kitchen where foods are not cooked or laced with oils. If someone insists on adding oil to their salad, the oil can be removed from the dish with a handful of grass, followed by a rinse in vinegar. For more difficult stains, for instance if someone heated a container of food and made a stuck-on mess, soaking the item in either vinegar and water or ammonia and water (but not both at the same time) should soften it enough to be cleaned with pumice or sand. Salt is also good for scouring, however, too much salt in the drain water would not be good for the garden or orchard. Ammonia, of course, is a fertilizer, and vinegar is plant-based and safe for grey water systems.
Clothes can be laundered in ammonia. It rinses out and will not irritate like soap and detergent residues can. Grey water from the washer is excellent in the garden or orchard being enhanced with nitrogen-rich ammonia.
Soap is made from two main ingredients: one is a fat or an oil, either from a plant, an animal, or petroleum; the other is lye or wood ashes. Wood ashes contain potassium compounds, which are good in the garden and orchard. Most commercial soaps and detergents are made from sodium compounds which are hard on the soil. Soap in any form is a thoroughly cooked product. But soap made from wood ashes and vegetable oil may have a place in an ecological home for laundry, dishes or general cleaning. It is available in most health food stores. A vinegar rinse may be necessary if soap is used on glassware.
Body odor is generally not a problem for one who eats hygienically, bathes daily, wears natural fibers, and avoids the use of alkalinizing soaps. If one is unsure of him- or her-self, washing the armpit area with lemon or vinegar while bathing, then rinsing, will clear up any unpleasant odor, leaving a better fragrance than that of a chemically-laden commercially produced deodorant. If perspiration is a problem, natural fiber clothing will wick it away without allowing it to build up to a wet area the way synthetic fabrics do. For the business person in a suit, admittedly this can be a problem, and one this site hopes to address, because most of the natural fiber suits available seem to have a synthetic linings, much to the exasperation of those of us who seek to live in harmony with nature but must work in the corporate climate for a living!
It is not natural or hygienic to wear shoes that elevate the heals or pinch the toes. Some of us don't like to participate in the slaughter of animals by buying leather products, nor do we want synthetics on our feet. This is another problem that this site seeks to address.
Moving from the post industrial diet to all raw may seem like a distant goal. This is where diet transition comes in. There are raw food recipe books that introduce raw versions of people's favorite cooked recipes. These recipes typically utilize soaking seeds or nuts for 4-12 hours, mixing the result with various herbs, adding salt and sometimes a concentrated sweetener such as agave nectar, using a blender or a food processor, and then sometimes putting the result into a dehydrator for several hours. Eating this way can be time consuming, and if a person thinks that this is what raw food is, than that person probably wouldn't be able to stick to raw food for long. It is just too much work to eat this way all the time, but it certainly is a transitional tool. Once a person gets used to the taste of raw food, and the way it affects the body (people typically feel lighter, with a more pleasant sensation in the digestive tract than they are used to), they may want to continue with a simpler version of raw food.
During about the first half of the past century, a man named Dr. Herbert M. Shelton noticed that people were becoming estranged from the laws of natural hygiene and worked prodigiously to help those who wished to get back on track. He wrote volumes on the subject and is regarded by many as the father of natural hygiene. He had a ranch in San Antonio, Texas where he conducted supervised fasts. Many were healed of potentially terminal diseases simply by allowing their bodies to cleanse naturally by consuming only water for a period of weeks.
One of the significant teachings of natural hygiene, as promulgated by Dr. Shelton, is the science of proper food combining. A wild animal or a very young child, who has not been conditioned to do otherwise, will eat one food at a time. When they are satisfied with a food, they will stop eating it, even if more remains. If they then desire something else, they will eat only that.
A concentrated starch or protein should be eaten without combining it with other starches or proteins. A few very similar starch and protein sources such as a few different types of seeds, can be eaten together, or possibly 2 or 3 different species of fish could be eaten together, or maybe a zucchini could be eaten with a yellow squash. A seed, grain, nut, starchy vegetable, or an animal meat, milk, cheese or egg each require a unique digestive process. Optimal digestion can only occur if it is eaten uncombined with other complex starch or protein foods. Any of these can be combined with a salad. Seeds can be combined with either a salad or fruit.
Water (or any other liquid that is consumed) should be drunk in the absence of food. Drinking while eating dilutes the digestive juices needed to digest the food. Washing down food with liquid is a bad habit that is developed when primarily cooked food is eaten, possibly because cooked food is devoid of water. Thirst and hunger are two separate needs and should be relieved at separate times. Thirst is a greater need than hunger, and should be relieved first. Pure water is the best thing for thirst. After drinking, the stomach should be allowed time to process the liquid before eating. Drink about 30 minutes or so before eating or about 2 hours or more after.
The body's natural rhythm is to do cleansing tasks in the morning and building up in the evening. Eating a fruit meal for breakfast is cleansing, nourishing and satisfying. Sweet fruits contain the calories necessary for the day's activities. Proceeding breakfast with a mug or two of warm water is a great way to start the day. If you are transitioning from coffee, peppermint tea will give a similar stimulus, so it probably shouldn't be a permanent routine, just a transitional device.
If you are transitioning from milk and cereal, crumbled up flax seed crackers in sesame cream made from mixing raw sesame tahini in a little water gives a similar taste and texture. You may add a few dates if you like it sweet. Flax seed crackers are easy to make in a food dehydrator from 1 part water to 2 parts flax seeds (no need to grind or puree). You can add salt and spices if you want, but going salt-free is the hygienic ideal for optimal health. There is enough sodium in the foods you eat, you will not suffer a salt deficiency if you cut out salt. A few spicy seeds such as coriander, fennel, cumin, etc. can be added to the recipe. Ready-to-eat raw flax seed crackers are available at some health food stores, but most of them have added salt.
Another great seed recipe is to grind seeds such as flax, oat and chia along with a small amount of spice seeds such as cardamom, caraway, and red chili in a coffee grinder, grist mill, or mortar and pestle, then mix the ground seeds with hot or cold water, and eat. The ideal way to eat seeds is to just soak them for several hours, and then eat them, or sprout them. Seeds combine well with either fruit or salad, and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. However, in my opinion, the ideal hygienic breakfast consists of either sweet fruit such as banana, date, peaches, mango, papaya, possibly along with fatty fruit such as avocado; or just melon along with berries or kiwi; or a pineapple, mango and bananas; or oranges and an avocado. If eating sweets such as bananas and dates with subacids such as oranges or strawberries, eat the subacids first, and then the sweets. The exception is that bananas can combine with pineapple in any order. Melons should be eaten alone, or with berries. Committed raw fooders typically eat a lot of fruit at a sitting. One banana is never enough. A small person on the way to a sedentary job will need at least three bananas (or the equivalent in other fruit) for breakfast. A working athlete may consume as many as twenty.
Lunch can be either another fruit meal like breakfast, or a salad meal. If the lunch is away from home, I prefer a salad since my dental care routine is not as thorough away from home as it is at home (and fruit are a little harder on the teeth then vegetables are). Nuts go well with salad, and a handful of raw macadamias, cashews or brazil nuts (etc.) placed in the container with the salad greens in the morning will soak a bit by lunch time just from the moisture in the greens. More soaking than that is not to my liking, but you may prefer nuts that are fully soaked. A cucumber, or some greens from the garden or a store are sufficient for a light lunch during a 30 minute break. On weekends I may have a bigger salad, or a second fruit meal for lunch.
Dinner is normally another salad, bigger than the quickie lunch during break at work, or smaller if a weekend day or holiday enables me to be closer to the ideal of the largest meal in the middle of the day.
Going out to eat as a raw fooder is a challenge, an adventure, and an opportunity to spread the news about raw food. There are raw food restaurants, but there is not yet one in my town or in any of the close neighboring towns, so my husband and I normally order raw food in ordinary restaurants when we go out to eat. They are sometimes surprised and need reminding that we do not want dressing with our salads. If available, I will put either green sauce, red sauce or guacamole on my salad as these are normally made from raw ingredients. Dressings typically contain vinegar and oil and sometimes even less desirable ingredients such as preservatives. Vinegar is the end product of fermenting rice, apples or grapes, and as such has little of the original nutrition from those foods. Aside from that it's acid pH is not a good complement to salad greens from the standpoint of optimal digestion. Oil coats the greens and makes absorption more difficult, contains many calories, and is a refined product (the plant fibers and nutrients were removed from the oil). I even had trouble getting oil-free salad at a raw restaurant. They finally understood when I asked for the dressing on the side. We also have to be very clear that we do not want cheese on our salads. Books have been written on the atrocities committed to cows, and additionally, another protein may complicate the mix and make everything harder to digest. We also request no croutons. Croutons are made from toast from bread made from refined wheat flour, I don't do cooked, processed, refined, or wheat (unless the wheat is sprouted and raw). It would be nice to have organically grown greens, but I'm not always a stickler on that, or I would probably never go out to eat. I do eat organic as much as feasible. Some places will allow us to order raw vegetables that they would normally serve cooked. For instance, a Chinese restaurant will bring us their stir-fry vegetables uncooked. If we are still hungry after leaving the restaurant, we go to the market and get some raw nuts.
We like raw fish once a month or so, my only transgression against veganism. One local sushi restaurant will make us hand rolls with fish eggs and no rice, another was unwilling to be flexible with the menu. I got an Italian Bistro to bring me a raw calamari steak and a salad once. I ask for what I want, and if they won't do it, I get up and go somewhere else.
Fasting for 12 hours out of every 24 hour period is beneficial as it provides the body ample time to cleanse itself. More health problems are caused from toxic build-up than are caused by nutritional or caloric deficiencies. This would mean completing dinner, for example, by 6:30, and not eating anything else until 6:30 the following morning. Drinking water during that period would be beneficial, if thirsty. Fasting an entire day or even two days at a time is very beneficial. Going to a fasting retreat for a week or more would be a great opportunity to do a deeper cleanse. Prior to the industrial revolution and the advent of dried noodles and canned goods people often fasted during winter depending on where they lived. Most were rejuvenated.