Back during our vegan days, I lived with a girl for about 5 years while we worked passionately in health food stores. We were majorly involved, actually I would call our lifestyle at that time “consummate”.
After a while, my girlfriend started having major hormonal disturbance, we made soymilk at home, sprouted kamut grass in our yard, and generally ate lots of beans (always soaked), lots of soy in various forms (processed and home-made fermented products) and tons of veggies, lentils, nuts, seeds, and sprouts. I watched as Jessi fell apart, her energy sagged, dark circles under her eyes, major anxiety, and insane PMS type symptoms that could not be touched by over the counter NSAIDs, only Darvoset would touch it and we made semi-regular trips to the ER because of debilitating abdominal pain, and after many tests it would always be inconclusive and they thought she might have endometriosis, but of course they could never find any hard evidence from the tests.

My long relationship with my super-vegan girlfriend eventually ended, and she left the health food store where we worked and lived in a much poorer way with some friends who ate more standard american style. I watched as her skin improved, dark circles went away, it was amazing how much more color she had within a week or two of eating meat -and this was refined grocery-store grain-fed swill meat. This was right at the time with the blood type book came out, and I thought it put all the pieces together. Jessi was a type O, and I’m a type B. Of course I would do better on vegan diet than a type O according to the book.

I stuck with my vegan diet for a while, and was way into it, I used to tell customers at our store to avoid dairy, that it was linked to allergies, asthma, osteoporosis, and about a zillion other issues. After all, we’re the only species to drink milk after we’re weaned, right? it was pointed out to me that we’re also the only species that farms, so I guess that observation may not be that meaningful in some ways.

Anyway, I won’t make this a novel, but it seems to me that nobody can have all the answers about everyone’s ultimate diet for lasting health. However, I can add my voice that plant based diets can be a wonderful thing for awhile, but problems can and do rear their ugly head for many people, pretty much all my old friends who were hardcore vegans or raw foodies back in the day are now omnivores. . As he put it above, lots of testing in the lab of our own bodies over decades.

For me it was yeast that made me throw in the towel, all that soy and high fiber and grains gave me a persistent yeast problem, not nearly as bad as most people since I did eat fermented foods, take probiotics, drink plenty of water, and many many other healthy lifestyle habits, but I can say I feel much more at ease on high fat diets, my bowels are so much more sturdy and I seem to have practically zero gas these days on all that bone stock soup.

I must give a huge shout out to Sally Fallon for helping so many of discover a regimen that really can do profound things for people. I do believe people will get lots of benefits going to a cleaned up diet of veggies and greens, especially if they’re coming from the trainwreck american diet. My experience and many of my friends (not all) have been that Sally is correct that eventually the need for animal based nutrients will make itself profoundly known.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Wow…

I’ll tell you what. I’m finding all this information completely confusing and i got no idea what to do anymore.

When i walk to into any store or a foodcourt or grocery/wholefood sotre everything seems contra-indicative of good health due to all the different things i’ve been reading about and i end up going in there with a list and coming out after an hour to have purchased maybe one of 5 things.

I am currently trying to ‘de-tox’, heal my crappy gut, and increase my immunity whilst staying away from certain hyperallergenic/toxic/intolerant foods to help rid myself of eczema!

This is no easy task and i am extremely confused where i now show signs of paralysis from analysis.

Is there a simple way or method?

I’m not asking for diagnosis or a quick fix, just i was just about to become a vegan inc. no eggs or dairy, then i realised that i didn’t have to, then i read this and other things and its like, so now what?

I’d greatly appreciate any advice!

Epsom salts for eczema? Won’t that dehydrate the skin?

And like, shouldn’t i consume no carbs what so ever to kill candida albicans?