(This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. Go back to Part 1.)
Farther down the violence scale are vegan diets. Here the person is eating exclusively from the plant kingdom. Perhaps the greatest popularizer of this kind of diet (to his eternal credit) is John McDougall.
This kind of diet is often called "starch centered" because the centerpiece of the meal becomes the very thing that was the "side" before—a potato, for instance, or brown rice (often with beans), or a taco with vegetable filling, or pasta and so on, accompanied by vegetables. The vegetables are cooked by grilling, steaming, baking, etc., while frying and especially deep-fat frying are avoided.
There are literally thousands of research studies showing the superiority of a vegan diet, in terms of both vitality and relative freedom from disease compared with diets featuring animal foods. (Search this website on the word "vegan" for more info.)
It's also worth noting that the four healthiest peoples on earth (Hunzas, Vilcambambans, Abkhasians, Tarahumaras) all eat a diet that is, according to researchers, "strikingly similar"—that is, 98-100% vegan. (Or at least it was this way earlier in the 20th century, before increasing contact with industrialized culture and its diets occurred.)
Further still down the scale of violence is a raw-food diet—often called a "living-food" diet—where one eats fresh fruits, nuts & seeds, and salads which include various raw vegetables. This still involves a little violence because of the raw vegetables, but is primarily a non-violent diet.
The vitality, endurance and freedom from disease enjoyed by those on a living-food diet has to be seen to be believed. Sometimes people who are very sick go on a living-food diet in a last-ditch (and often successful) effort to save themselves, but that's not who I mean. I'm referring to those who have been on this diet for some years, and all I can say is, I hope you get to experience it someday.
At the completely non-violent end of the scale is the fruitarian diet—fresh, raw fruits and nuts. This is the diet that Essie Honaball wrote about after being on it for 20 years. According to studies of striations in teeth with electron microscopes, this is the diet we ate for some 50 million years or so, until the advent of colder weather and the onset of the Ice Ages about 1.0-1.5 million years ago.
This is the diet that was studied by researchers in South Africa, who set out to prove that humans couldn't live on a fruitarian diet. After six months the test subjects, to the astonishment of the researchers, were not only in perfect health but refused to leave the diet and go back to their "normal" diet because they were enjoying a level of vitality and well-being that they hadn't experienced since early childhood.
I've had the privilege of meeting some fruitarians who have been on that diet for 15-20 years or more. They actually have a kind of physical glow about them, subtle but unmistakable. Again, it has to be seen (or experienced) to be believed. Even more remarkable is the moment when you realize that this physical radiance was actually designed by nature to be the natural state for human beings.
Primates and proto-primates evolved over some 50 million years or so in a symbiotic relationship with the evolution of fruit-bearing trees. Fruit-bearing trees actually offer up their fruits to us as a means of dispersing their seeds.
Now look down at your hands. Are they adapted for ripping and tearing flesh, or rooting in the earth? Or are they rather adapted, with their nimble fingers and opposable thumbs, for plucking a ripe piece of fruit from a tree that is offering it?
And in a state of nature, what are we naturally attracted to? Why, the riotous colors and delicious smells of fruits, of course. That's no accident. And it's no accident that, after some 50 million years, the body perfectly adapted to such a diet.
Yes, the body has partially adapted to other kinds of diets since the Ice Ages, the Agricultural Revolution and, most recently, the Industrial Revolution—which gave ordinary humanity enough wealth to consume animal foods at every meal for the first time.
But someday, if you'd like to experience for yourself the diet that the body perfectly adapted to, try the fruitarian diet. Be aware that you may feel worse at first as your body begins a long detoxification process and pulls out toxins buried in the woodwork.
But underneath the surface, in all probability, you'll gradually begin to notice a sense of lightness and vitality and well-being that you may not have imagined was possible. What an interesting coincidence that this is also the most non-violent diet and the one that most respects the sanctity of life.
For more information from this website about the subjects of this article, please Search on the words "animal foods" or "vegetarian" or "vegan" or "fruitarian."
—jim sloman, for 8/30/02
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