1—What IS the GREAT Liquid Diet?
What is its purpose?
The dietary process now known as The GREAT Liquid Diet (GLD, or GLDiet) was discovered and named by Traditional Naturopath Leonard Mehlmauer (ND, ret.) in 1975. It has since been used to help many patients, friends, students, colleagues, and family members. The basic principle: “less is more,” in the sense that by reducing the food processing work needed by the mouth and GI tract, bodily energy is freed up for purification. And, BTW, in the case of health, and in life altogether, purification is the name of the game.
It’s long been known that pure raw foods, with their high natural nutrient content, are healthier than cooked ones, where many nutrients are lost. But, raw or cooked, solid foods of most kinds take much energy for the mouth and stomach to break down (and for the rest of the GI tract to process). By blending the (mostly) raw foods, we get the nutrients—while the blender (and juicer) do the chewing—which helps both mouth and stomach.
But the good stuff doesn’t end there. Most of us don’t eat all-raw—or even hi-raw (like 80% raw). Many aren’t even aware of the dangers of GMOs and pesticides. The fact that the GLD takes these into account is a major part of its success. And it gets better. The experience of nearly five decades (since 1972) of clinical and personal work provides the practical, realistic details of how the GLD applies in your life.
After seeing hundreds of cases of chronic disease healed or helped, we know the power of the GLD to change lives for the better. Weight loss, pain elimination, getting off drugs, increased longevity, and a more youthful appearance, are just side-effects of this gentle and amazing purification program. Children, the elderly—virtually anyone can do the GLD. Are you ready? Welcome!
The Pleasures of Eating
The poet said, “You are locked into your suffering, and your pleasures are the seal.” If you had to choose between eating whatever you wanted and eating in a way that brot health and freedom from disease, which would you choose? These two are not mutually exclusive, but there is a principle here that has to be carefully considered by those wishing to be healthy. Within our current “crazy random culture,” the foods that we’ve learned to eat—and that are tasty—have been killing us by degrees, destroying our health.
Face it, some of us will choose to keep on eating whatever we want and whatever we like, even when we know very well that they are powerfully negatively affecting our health. We see this with cigarette and alcohol addicts, and it’s basically the same with food. People with gross addictions of any kind may even be measured “geniuses,” but they are singularly lacking in the wisdom needed in bringing discipline to the body-mind. We have to, at some point, admit a food addiction—and deal with it in a truly adult fashion, man or woman.
No need to belabor the fact that food-taking—along with sex—is among the most pleasurable activities in life. There are certain of us for whom eating is the single most enjoyable life event. So much the worse for them—especially if—because of their food addiction—they find themselves in a situation in which they must do without food for some period of time…like being fed thru an NG tube in a hospital!
No problem for those rare few who deeply understand the real function of food, and therefore enjoy the play of their relationship with it. No problem with them enjoying food “to the fullest.” Appropriate use and intelligent abstinence—that’s the rule—if we are going to enjoy good health while eating gross food. No need to necessarily totally eliminate lower quality foods. There’s a time to eat otherwise “unhealthful” (celebratory) food, and a time to avoid it. Everything in its season.
Taste or Quality?
The trouble is, we Westerners, or otherwise those of us in this world who have plenty to eat, wind up eating plenty—and plenty of what our bodies don’t need to be healthy. Plenty of what is difficult for the body to manage, with wastes that are polluting to the body, with hollow or missing nutrients, all with toxifying, disease-producing, and even (eventually) deadly results.
The infantile, childish, and adolescent approaches to food (see below) most often result in disease. Whereas, the adult approach allows balance, clarity, and purity. There is an allowance for the enjoyment of what others abuse. There is freedom instead of license. Intelligently applied (the adult approach), our diets can include almost anything, while—as a general rule—consciously and essentially (and at least most of the time) choosing that which brings real nourishment. There’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying tasty cooked and prepared food. But to indulge taste as a first principle over nourishment is often disastrous.
Creating a Foundation for That Which is Great
We will only take on a diet if it tastes good or otherwise makes us feel good. The GREAT Liquid Diet (GLD) does both. The GLD came about not as a carefully conceived plan to lose weight, cure disease, or to accomplish anything at all. It was more like an act of desperation to help a desperate patient. It worked! And worked again and again, both for patients and for your author—who is now on some version of it frequently. And it can work for you.
However, since that first time, we’ve learned that there is a higher purpose for the GLD: true bodily equanimity. Bringing balance and longevity to the body allows for more easeful and effective religious and Spiritual practice. When the body is disease-free and lives longer, we have more clarity and focus in what is most important in life, in the real purpose of life: Blissfulness, Freedom, and Happiness—and more time to be effective in its realization: We can love God better, longer, and more intimately when we don’t have to deal with problems in the body!
Food, as suggested, has nothing to do with spirit. Spirit is beyond body and mind. Food, then, in and of itself, is not Spiritual. But, food can certainly help provide a practical foundation for real Spiritual practice by eliminating those troublesome irritations referred to as our various bodily diseases. And, diet strongly influences the etheric body, the energy field that powers our nervous system and feeds the gross physical body thru our emotions. The lower sense mind is also powerfully affected by diet. This is easily proven: eat six candy bars for breakfast tomorrow morning and watch what happens with the mind and emotions!
The GLD is a way of eating, a “dietary delivery system” that enhances many healthful qualities, such as…
· Digestion (since liquids are generally more easily broken down in mouth and stomach)
· The efficiency of nutrient uptake (via “live” enzymes in raw natural liquids)
· More energy available to boost the Lymphatic-Immune
· The removal of burdensome wastes that ordinarily plague the body in the various forms of disease
· Nutrient quality (since most or all GLD food is raw natural)
· Overall greater purification than most diets by far
· The opportunity to observe one’s dietary habits in a relaxed manner, and understand and transcend them
What You’re Getting Into
Taking on the GLD means abandoning old habits of eating—at least for 30 days. (Yes, you can do this gradually.) It means moving into pure diet, a diet that includes increasingly higher percentages of raw foods. It means getting healthier, yes, and facing and overcoming negative patterns and tendencies of food taking. This is an important step in diet and life, and necessarily a gradual process—unless there is a chronic disease that demands immediate access to the benefits of the liquids (in which case, let’s just get busy, waste no time, get right into the higher aspects of the 30-Day GLD—Level One—and get the job done!).
For most of us, it is going to be a gradual process of moving to increasingly higher percentages of raw foods—as liquids. It takes the average adult 2½ years to phase off the typical North American junked-up diet and into the pure foods hi-raw or all raw veggy diet. Therefore, don’t be in a hurry. On the other hand, why wait and get sicker? Why put off the great rewards of the GLD? One doesn’t have to take 2½ years! You can accomplish an all-raw diet in 4 weeks—either thru solid foods or thru the 30-Day GLD.
The GLD, Raw Solid Foods, and the Principle of Fasting
The GLD is not a fast. A fast is thin juices and water—or just water and herb tea. But, the GLD works on the same principle as a fast: when the body is denied solid foods, it goes into a purification mode. Of course, the body will go into a generally purifying mode by simply eating all raw foods as solids. With fasting, the body purifies itself far more rapidly than on raw or any other solids. The length of the fast depends on several factors, most of them specific to the faster’s case (age, relative health, immune strength, willingness to participate, etc.).
When solid foods enter the body, at each meal, an average of 25% of the body’s total energy comes to bear on the stomach—to digest the food. Compare that to an average of 5% for a juice fast, and you’ll see why a fast is so “fast” at cleansing the body.
Mainly, that extra 20% of energy that would have gone to digestion is now freed up for cleansing and purification. And please note: the body knows exactly what to do when it doesn’t have to work on digesting solid food! Out prance the tiny guys with the “brooms” (the white blood cells) to do their amazing work.
Fasting is a wonderful, tried-and-true means of cleansing the body. Jesus Christ is reputed to have fasted for 40 days. Many historical figures have written about their fasting experiences. Fasting is simply an intelligent means of periodically cleansing accumulating junk that invariably finds its way into the body—whether intentionally or not. And fasting will definitely lengthen life. Trouble is, most people are either afraid of fasting, believe it to be unnecessary or harmful, lack the needed discipline for it, or for other reasons just won’t do it.
The GLD, however, is much easier to do—and much more fun—than either whole raw foods or fasting. A fast is not fun. And you can do many things on the GLD that you cannot do on a fast. Like a snack! You can accomplish just as much and more on the GLD as on a fast, altho purification will take longer on the GLD.
Not everyone can fast, but upwards of 98% of human adults can do the GLD. And most children. The typical 30-Day GLD requires an average of only 8% of total body energy per full meal. That leaves a lot of energy for cleansing and purification.
How the GLD Works
There are four basic principles that make the GLD effective:
VEGETAL Vegetable foods are superior to animal foods for human health. They contain energy directly from the sun and Earth. Killed animal flesh, and animal by-products, while useable as food, are second-hand nutrition.
RAW Live vegetal foods are better for our health than are any cooked foods. Generally, the higher the percentage of raw vegetal foods we eat (various portions of fruits, veggies, and nuts/seeds), the healthier we are.
LIQUID If we take raw vegetal foods as liquids, we lessen the stress on bodily systems. Careful chewing of raw vegetal (or any) food is important for many reasons. But on the GLD, machines do most of this chewing for us. This means less food processing stress on the body, thus increasing available energy for the crucial purification.
FULL NUTRIENT RANGE Fasting is taking thin liquids for maximum bodily purification. But, we can fast only for so many days before the body begins to starve, to self-digest. With the full nutrient range of the GLD’s blended and juices liquids (fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds), plus the bulk and ruffage, we can take these tasty liquids indefinitely and thus sustain the health and life of the body optimally.
The fact that liquids are being taken simplifies the process of eating quite significantly—and cuts way back on the kinds of foods taken, including all those “goodies” that corrupt the body. We don’t blend or juice hamburgers, fries, pizza, or fried chicken on the GLD. And there’s no need to count calories, either. The food taken on the GLD is essentially pure, natural, and mostly (or even all) raw: blended and juiced fruits, veggies and nuts/seeds, and perhaps even blended cooked and/or hot raw veggy soups.
There are other blender and juicer drinks, and even some purchased liquids like amazake and home-prepared hot raw carob and raw cocoa drinks and herb teas. Deliciously rich coconut-avo-banana smoothies. And many others that are possible. And the snacks, and the fact that when it’s time to celebrate someone’s birthday or wedding one can, if necessary, take a solid food meal and get right back onto the GLD. You can’t do these things on a fast.
The GLD can, of course, be used effectively for weight loss—a huge plus for many people these days. But perhaps its greatest general public appeal and effectiveness is with alleviating or eliminating chronic degenerative disease—if not for the gaining and maintaining of good, balanced health. And, the GLD shines as a steady and ongoing dietary practice for older age and longevity. Many use it to just stay healthy—by doing a 30 Day GLD yearly.
For dealing with anything from arthritis to zinc deficiency, from colds to cancer, the GLD as a diet excels. As a healing mode, it’s quick when compared to solid food diets, even all-raw veggie diets, and yet it’s mild and relatively easy on the body when compared to fasting. The GLD is using our technology (especially the blender, but also the juicer, citrus juice extractor, water distiller, and even food dehydrator) intelligently.
Wave Good-bye to Hospitals, Doctors, and Dentists
The GLD is basically all liquids. No chewing required. Well, OK, a little, to get oral enzymes going. So, how hard is that on your teeth!? Yes, continue to brush your teeth after “meals.” Your teeth can continue to grow and enamelize, hard and clean, unimpeded. The GLD’s prime recipe, the Green Smoothie, is most important.
Then, there’s the RMVJ (it’s the deep red juice pictured below), involving juicing 3 carrots, 2 apples, half a cucumber (or zucchini), 1/3rd of a lemon with peel, 1/3rd of beet, a garlic bud the size of the last digit of your thumb, and two sticks of celery (see Recipes chapter). How quickly could you eat all that produce in solid form? Jaws getting tired yet? You get tired thinking about it. In juice form, you can get it down in a few minutes—and it’s delicious!
All that nutrition-dense power speeding to your cells! Later, add a green smoothie (a fruit-veggy-nut blender drink) and you’ve got all the daily nutrition bases covered. Soon, your health problems are gone, gone, gone! Note: The photo here includes, from top L to R: fresh real orange juice, RMVJ, coconut-almond milk, a spirulina smoothie; 2nd row: blueberry smoothie, strawberry smoothie; bottom row: mango smoothie.
Allopathic medicine is good at acute care, emergency care, like when we break an arm or leg, or otherwise are in pain. And it can be good at certain diagnostics. But when it comes to treating chronic or degenerative disease processes, or even the common cold, it’s lost. It just wants to throw drugs at them. This is where Traditional, Natural, and the so-called Complementary medicines shine.
Some even suggest that 90% or more of Allopathic medicine is bogus, harmful, wasteful, and dangerous. Mainly, because drugs don’t cure disease. They are not designed to cure. Cure isn’t desirable to Big Pharma. That would cut into their profits—from selling drugs. Drugs can take away pain and dilate tissues, but otherwise—and even in those cases—they actually contribute to disease by toxifying the body.
OK, so how long will this process of getting well take us while on the GLD? Ask yourself this: How long did it take for you to get into this diseased state!? Using your GLD, it won’t take anywhere near that long to get out of it. Nature can seem slow to work, but given the right tools, she’ll get the job done. Enter pure raw foods—especially in liquefied form. These are her tools, along with The BIG 7.
· early bedtime
· daily exercise
· natural sunshine
· positive thinking
· clean, orderly and positive environments
· right activity
· Spiritual study
What can happen when everything you do is life-positive? What are the logical results? Life-positive!
The On-going Diet Experiment
Correct diet depends on so many things: genetic inheritance factors, environmental changes, age, and various other social, cultural, emotional, and other influences. It takes much observation by self and others—especially expert others, at least initially—to do it right. It needs to be designed and developed against various imbalances and symptoms that occur within our current Western culture. Imbalances can appear from eating any kind of food, including raw foods. One can over-eat raw fruit bars, e.g., and get symptoms of imbalance.
Certain of us can feel too cold on raw foods, or move too strongly into the etheric and away from the vital physical to where we feel like we’re floating above the body. A raw diet has to be adapted to gradually and intelligently. This whole process takes conscious awareness—on our part as well as that of our health practitioner. We learn by adaptation and experiment. But, we must stay with this process of adaptation to hi raw or all raw to see how this diet thing works. The GLD can make this simple.
Diet will necessarily change over time, anyway—at least thru bodily aging. The stomach does not work as well after age 45 or so. The influences of life come to bear. We travel and cannot get the food we are used to or have learned is best for us. But, raw natural veggy diet is the primary way to get and stay well because the gross physical body is a food body designed by Nature to receive food as it comes in Nature (which means not cooked).
Raw diet maintains health, vitality, and energy. When some of us—because of our specific genetic makeup—get into too many sweet foods, our blood sugar can spike and dip, swinging wildly. If we get too cold while eating raw foods, we may need heat-producing substances like cayenne (capsicum) or ginger to add to the diet, both of which bring heat to the body. Or simply have some hot cacao. Too much raw garlic—altho it may keep the vampires at bay(!), and is excellent for lowering blood pressure and killing parasites—can over-stimulate the immune system and slow signal transmission in the corpus callosum of the brain.
So, imbalances can occur even on a raw diet, and we need to be conscious and mindful of these changes. We shouldn’t let deficiencies and imbalances continue. Nuts and seeds, e.g., and also chilies and hot peppers, are stimulating—including to the sex drive and sex impulse. But, without nuts and seeds, the body can become depleted. We must learn to use them rightly. Raw foods serve both thin-body types, who tend to lose weight rapidly, and also thick-body types, who seem to gain weight merely by thinking about food. We need only apply the hi-raw or all-raw diet rightly, noting what works for us and what doesn’t as individuals. This way, we have everything to gain.
So, what does all this discussion of raw solids have to do with the GLD? First, it helps to know why we’re using such a hi percentage of raw food on the GLD. Second, it helps prepare us for the solid food meals we’ll be eating when we’re not taking the GLD. You get a clearer sense of the how and the why of raw foods as you proceed along on your GLD—and how it all applies in your case. It gets clearer and easier as you go along.
The GLD as a Life Monitor
Amidst your practice of the GLD, you’ll come across many signs and patterns in yourself—physical, mental, and emotional, some of which you won’t particularly like. You’ll see certain life-negative habits you’ve developed and adapted to regarding food, like using it exclusively to pleasurize or entertain yourself—even when you’re not hungry—instead of just rightly nourishing the body. Such habits are part of the reason we suffer our physical diseases.
We will see that doing the GLD and The BIG 7 are not merely about physical issues, but also about how we approach life altogether. We will see our tendencies just by taking on the disciplines of the GLD in the context of The BIG 7. Therefore, the GLD offers us an educational opportunity. We can use it to grow in our understanding—of ourselves and our culture. Meanwhile, done rightly, thoughtfully, and with proper guidance, most of us will be helped on all levels, even quite significantly.