Raederle's Story

There is a detailed account of the misery I went through as a child on my health, fitness and food blog. Here, I will aim to cover the highlights of my story, without going into every sob story of my life.

My mother birthed me at the age of 42. When she was a child they doused her with antibiotics continually for ten years in order to prevent a recurrence of Scarlet Fever. That was how they handled it back then, because if it came back, the person died. This was before there was any notion of Candida or any of the negative effects of taking antibiotics.

My mother never ate much fermented food, or took extensive probiotics.

She has suffered from Candida her entire life. A baby gets there healthy intestinal flora from their mother. Because my mother didn't have very balanced flora, I was born without one.

I ended up taking antibiotics as just a newborn to boot, because I had rheumatic fever.

At the age of three or four I bit a glass thermometer and got a nasty dose of mercury poisoning. I had to have the glass picked from my teeth and the mercury pumped from my stomach. That incident could have easily been fatal.

With that rough sketch of a background, the statistics of my life are as follows.

Note that these changes that occur are with a consistent sedentary lifestyle. I did not become more active until the age of 21 when being active stopped being painful.

Under the age of 21:

Habitual canker sores of the mouth, starting before I can remember (irritated by sugar and acid)

Bleeding gums, every time I brushed, and sometimes while eating

No endurance, couldn't walk a mile without severe stitches in the side, gas pains, feet aches, etc

Extremely flaky scalp

Burning lungs whenever I attempted to run, preventing me from running more than a few steps

At least one ear infection for every two years in my life

Extreme sensitivity to cigarette smoke, incense and other smokes, often causing migraines

Extreme sensitivity to heat. Anything over 80 degrees was unbearable and immobilizing.

Under the age of 17:

Strep throat 1 to 4 times a year

Absolutely no energy, no interest in gym, recess, sports, or being outside

Habitual painful constipation, especially under the age of 9 and from age 14 to 16.

Extremely itchy legs when standing in one place due to poor circulation.

Continual urge to "pop" my knuckles (also known as "cracking" one's knuckles)

Continual urge to rotate my ankles until they "popped"

Woke up with a sore throat 1 out of 4 days in the year

Woke up with random fevers that doctors were mystified about regularly

Ages 9 to 17:

Constant depression, habitual suicidal thoughts and activities

Habitual stye around the eye

Frequent breakouts, almost constant acne

Hormonal problems (beyond what is normal for this age)

Violent thoughts and actions

Mood swings, and patches of complete apathy

Extremely sore and knotted back, constantly stiff and aching (Age 9 to 21)

Severe Candida and all Candida symptoms, including raging yeast infections 1 to 5 times yearly

Frequently bloated, especially from age 15 to 17. My entire abdominal area would ache, burn and gurgle for days at a time.

Frequent muscle cramps. If I got them in my legs I couldn't walk.

Inability to fall asleep, often awake at 3am despite going to bed at 9pm.

Extreme food cravings, especially from age 10 to 16. I especially craved dairy, meats, sweets, salt and breads.

Frequent bouts of dizziness, inability to balance, concentrate or breath evenly

Anxiety attacks

Continual burping starting abruptly at age 16. Took me a full year to rid myself of them.

Severe immobilizing stomach aches, especially from age 15 to 17

Migraine headaches, 8 to 40 a year during this age bracket

Lock-jaw (inability to open my mouth fully), started at age 14 and got worse through age 16

Severe PMS, menstrual cramps and heavy-flow periods

Periodic chest pains that have never been explained

Abominable memory

Age 17 to 20:

Mild Candida symptoms

Frequent mild bloating, sometimes severe and painful bloating

Often I would take 2 hours to fall asleep.

Age 21 and 22:

Occasional mild anxiety (perhaps twice a month).

Occasional mild sleeping difficulty (takes me 5 to 45 minutes to fall asleep usually).

Rare mild headache (once a month perhaps, lasting for around 15 minutes).

Occasional skin irregularities, usually following excessive sweating, stress or eating of desserts.

My weight:

120lbs at age 12,

130lbs at age 13,

140lbs at age 15,

153lbs at age 16,

123lbs at age 17 (with hardly any muscle and much fat),

128lbs at age 20 (with hardly any muscle and much fat),

123lbs at age 22 (with much more muscle and less fat than at age 17 or 20)

My diet as a toddler:

Mustard on white bread with a slice of American's singles cheese

Yogurt

Oatmeal

Lima beans (cooked for over an hour and slathered in butter)

White-skinned conventional potatoes, without skins (cooked for over an hour and slathered in butter)

Dumplings

Hard-boiled eggs

My diet from age 5 through age 9:

French Fries (especially from Burger King)

Lima beans (cooked for an hour and slathered in butter)

French Fries (especially from Wendy's)

Pizza

French Fries (baked at home in the oven with olive oil)

Steak Fries (deep fried on the stove in olive oil)

Steak (slathered in A1 sauce)

Baked Potatoes (Filled with butter)

Curly Fries

Various sweetened yogurts (including Cream Savors)

Sunny-side up eggs with bread to dip in the yoke

French Fries (from McDonalds)

Beef

Hamburgers on white buns with mustard, onion and a slice of conventional tomato

Cheerios (plain or honey-coated with whole milk)

Shredded Wheat (plain or frosted, often mixed with whole milk)

French Fries (with lots and lots of salt!)

My diet from age 9 through age 16:

Fast food, especially french fries and Chinese food

Ramon noodles with chicken flavoring

Pizza with cheese and pepperoni

Buttered noodles, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese

Granola, grain-based cereals, swimming in conventional whole cow's milk

White rice

Toast with peanut-butter

Boiled chicken, fried chicken, home-made, family-made and KFC

Potato chips of all kinds, generally one bag a day

Store-bought juice of many kinds

Popcorn soaked in seasoned butter, home-popped (rarely microwaved)

Frozen microwave dinners on occasion

Tater-tots, hashbrowns, fishsticks, 'sweet and sour chicken' and other tan-colored 'foods'

Occasional apple, orange or kiwi (like once a week)

My diet from age 17 to age 20 (that I went on after much research and reading):

Organic long-grain brown rice cooked in vegetable broth (daily)

Organic corn chips and organic potato chips (without trans fats or added sugars, daily)

Iceburg lettuce with cherry tomatoes, home-made croutons, and home-made vinaigrette (3 times a week)

Rice crisps and rice cakes (unsweetened snacks made from plain brown rice)

Grapefruits (plain, usually eaten one half at a time), watermelon, and berries (each weekly-ish)

Bell peppers (plain, eaten in small slices throughout the day)

Apples (one or two a day)

Kiwis (several a week)

Rice milk over unsweetened granola (4 to 7 times a week)

Boiled organic red-skin potatoes eaten with the skin, eaten with butter (3 to 6 times weekly)

Boiled carrots and onions cooked with the potatoes, eaten with butter (1 to 3 times weekly)

(Vegan diet with the exception of butter.)

My diet starting at age 21:

Banana smoothies (banana + water + other fruit + powders/superfoods/spices)

Dehydrated vegetable and seed crackers (dehydrated at 110 degrees or less)

Spinach, lettuce, avocado, tomato, bell pepper, etc, salads

Nori wraps containing the above salad ingredients and more

Sprouts, fresh home-made vegetable and fruit juices

Desserts that are not-cooked/baked, but made from dried/fresh fruits, nuts and seeds

Occasional nut-milks

Home-made guacamole, salsa, chard-wraps, raw vegan pizza (made in the dehydrator)

Raw kelp noodles, seaweeds, organic seasonings

Notice the correlation between the changes in my diet and changes in my life experience. The two major changes were at age 17 and age 21. To get started eating the type of food that freed me from a lifetime of misery, check out my recipes here.

And because photos speak thousands of words... The follow photo stream starts at age 14 and goes through age 22. Notice the changes in my weight, skin, demeanor, facial expressions, hair, scenery choices, and in my eyes.

Click To Open In New Window, Click Again To View Full-Size

Raederle Phoenix, born 1989

Written September 1st 2011

Write me with a question: raederle at gmx dot com

Check out my sites:

Statistics from Nature's First Law

Natures First Law by Arlin, Dini, Wolfe and Aterhov researched

Presented by Paul Klein, 716 884 0099

Each person is encouraged to bring the most influential book that got them started on a Healthier Living Path and reviewing with the Group the highlights you’ve underscored or highlighted.

Appendix D from Nature's First Law

If you still are not convinced of the absolute benefits of The Raw Food Diet and the utter suicide of being a cooked-foodist, we have included an extensive list of facts and statistics called “Realities,” most of which were originally compiled by John Robbins and Howard Lyman. These facts have been revised and updated by Nature’s First Law. Though most of these facts simply compare a vegetarian diet to an animal based diet, remember that the differences between the two, however great, are much greater still when one compares the differences between a raw food diet and a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Humans and Livestock

1. Human population of the United States: @ 300 million

2. Number of humans that can be fed by the grain and soy beans eaten by U.S. livestock: 1.4 billion

3. Percentage of corn grown in U.S. eaten by livestock: 85%

Percentage of corn eaten by humans: 15% (99.999% of which is cooked)

4. Percentage of oats grown in U.S. eaten by livestock: 95%

5. Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90%

6. Percentage of carbohydrate wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 99%

7. Percentage of dietary fiber wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 100%

8. How frequently a child dies of starvation: every 2 seconds

9. Amount of potatoes that can be grown on 1 acre (4,047 sq. meters) of land: 20,000 pounds (9,072 kg)

10. Amount of beef that can be grown on 1 acre (4,047 sq. meters) of land: 165 pounds (75 kg)

11. Percentage of U.S. agricultural land used for the production of animal foods: 85%

12. Percentage of U.S. agricultural land used to produce beef: 56%

13. Amount of grain and soybeans needed to produce 1 pound (or kilogram) of feedlot beef: 16 lbs. (7.3 kg)

14. Amount of protein fed to chickens to produce 1 pound (or kilogram) of protein as chicken flesh 5 pounds (2.3 kg)

15. Amount of protein fed to hogs to produce 1 pound (or kilogram) of protein as hog flesh: 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg)

Humans and Livestock (con’t)

16. Number of children who starve to death each day: 40,000

17. Number of pure vegetarian who can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed 1 person consuming meat-based diet: 20 (this number cold be closer to 150 if you’re talking about pure raw-vegetarians.

18. Number of people who will starve to death this year: 60,000,000

19. Number of people who could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%: 60,000,000

Soil

20. Historic cause of demise of many great civilizations: topsoil depletion

21. Primary cause of topsoil depletion: grain farming for bread, rice and livestock.

22. Percentage of original U.S. topsoil lost to date: 75%

23. Amount of U.S. cropland lost each year to soil erosion: 4 million acres (16,187 square kilometers, or the size of Connecticut)

24. Percentage of U.S. topsoil loss directly associated with livestock raising: 85%

Trees

25. Amount of U.S. forest which has been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet: 260 million acres (1.05 million sq. kilometers)

26. How often an acre (4,047 square meters) of U.S. trees disappears: every eight seconds

27. Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to a vegetarian diet: 1 acre (4,047 sq. meters)

Rainforests

28. Rate at which precious rainforest land is being lost: 2.4 acres per second

29. A driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit

30. Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests and related habitats: 1,000 per year

Water

31. User of more than half of all water used for all puirposes in the United States: livestock production

32. The quantity of water used in the production of the average cow: sufficient to float a battleship

33. Water needed to produce 1 pound (0.45 kg) of wheat: 25 gal. (95 liters)

34. Water needed to produce 1 pound (0.45 kg) of meat: 2,500 gal. (9,465 liters)

35. Cost of common hamburger meat if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by U.S. taxpayer: $35 per lb ($77 per kg)

36. Current cost for 1 pound (0.45 kg) of protein from wheat: $1.50

37. Current cost for 1 pound (0.45kg) of protein from beef steak: $15.40

38. Cost for 1 pound (0.45 kg) of protein from beefsteak if U.S. taxpayers ceased subsidizing meat industry’s use of water: $89 per pound (0.45 kg)

Petroleum and Energy

39. Some energy costs incurred in livestock raising and meat sales: animal transportaton fees, feed supply costs, antibiotic expenses, slaughterhouse fees, packaging expenses, refrigeration costs, refrigerated shipping fees.

40. Amount of gasoline required to produce a pound of grain-fed beef in the United States: 1 gallon

Petroleum & Energy (con’t)

41. Average quantity of fossil fuel per year required to sustain the typical beef intake of a family of four: 260 gallons

42. Amount of carbon dioxide emitted by 260 gallons of gasoline: 2.5 tons (as much as a car emits in six months)

43. Length of time world’s petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate meat centered diet: 13 years

44. Length of time world’s petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate a vegetarian diet: 260 years

45. Principal reason for U.S. intervention in Persian Gulf: dependence on foreign oil.

46. Barrels of oil imported daily by U.S.: 6.8 million

47. Percentage of energy return (as food energy per fossil energy expended) of most energy efficient farming of meat: 34.5%

48. Percentage of energy return (as food energy per fossil energy expended) of least energy efficient plant food: 328%

49. Amount of soy beans produced by the amount of fossil fuel needed to produce 1 pound (0.45kg) of feedlot beef: 40 pounds (18.1 kg)

50. Percentage of raw materials consumed in U.S. for all purposes presently consumed to produce current meat-centered diet: 33%

51. Percentage of raw materials consumed in U.S. for all purposes needed to produce pure vegetarian diet: 2%

52. Number of cattle worldwide: 1.3 billion

53. Amount of the greenhouse gas, methane, emitted by 1.3 billion cattle:

150 trillion quarts

Sewage Systems

54. Production of excrement by total U.S. population: 12,000 lbs. (5443 kg) per second.

55. Production of excrement by U.S. livestock: 250,000 lbs. (113,400 kg) per second!

56. Sewage systems in U.S. cities: common

57. Sewage system in U.S. feedlots: nil

58. Amount of waste produced annually by U.S. livestock in confinement operations which is not recycled: 1 billion tons (907 billion kg)

59. Relative concentration of feedlot wastes compared to raw domestic sewage: 10 to several hundred times more highly concentrated

60. Where feedlot waste typically ends up: human water supply

Medical School & Nutritional Studies

61. Number of U.S. medical schools: 125

62. Number of U.S. medical schools with a required course in nutrition: 30

63. Training in nutrition received during four years of medical school by the average U.S. physician: 2.5 hours

64. Percentage of the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s budget devoted to nutritional studies: less than 1 %

Heart Attacks

65. How frequently a heart attack strikes in the U.S.: every 25 seconds

66. How frequently a heart attack kills in the U.S.: every 45 seconds

67. Most common cause of death in the U.S. : heart attack

68. Risk of death from heart attack by average U.S. woman: 46%, man: 52%

69. Risk of death from heart attack by average American purely vegetarian woman: 3% man: 4%

Meeting #8

August 31st 2011

Attendees for Meeting #8

Toni Y, Toni V, Paul, Raederle and Jay

Share an excerpt from a book that has started you on your journey...

Toni Yank: Talked about Empty Harvest, a book that shows natives unaffected by western diet versus natives affected by western diet. The photographs are tremendously different. The book makes the link between agriculture, human immune systems, diet, nutrition and ecology. It's a strong connection.

Toni V: Shared a bit of "The Continuum Concept" with us. She described it as the book that turned her "into a thinking person."

Raederle: Read several pages from "The Art of Happiness." This book was instrument for Raederle's understanding of the power of perspective. It helped widen her view and allow her to look at the bigger picture. It pulled her out of her self-centered mind-set and released many emotional chains that had been holding her down.

Paul: Shared with us some facts from the back of Natures First Law. These facts can be read by clicking here.

Jay: Expresses the view that the fantasy books he's read have taught him values such as honor, but there is no one book that gave him a paradigm shift. Jay has never finished reading a "self help" book in full.