if it smells like bread or beer. If it does, it is ready for use to make your own bread. (Use a sourdough
recipe.)
Alternatively, you may use organic raisins. Soak them in water, covered with 2-3 layers of cheesecloth
(follow the same instructions as above). Keep container in the fresh air and wait a few days up to a week.
Use the water as a natural culture, once it turns or smells fermented.
Conclusion:
Nutrients are not the only components of our food. Natural food also contains toxic plant antibodies
(antigens once ingested), a fact that should be considered by all those who live on unaltered whole foods.
Ayurveda knew of these dangers even 6,000 years ago and recommends that we prepare and cook a
considerable portion of our foods. Mankind has used fire for food preparation for over one million years
to make food digestible and to remove any toxic components. A mixed diet, consisting of raw and
possibly organically grown salad foods, fruit, cooked vegetables, cooked staple foods such as rice, wheat,
and other grain foods, as well as legumes, offers a large selection of natural foods that can accommodate
every body-type.
As mentioned, balanced Pittas, with their naturally strong AGNI or digestive fire, can eat relatively
more raw foods than the other two major body types, particularly in the summer season. Vata and Kapha
types benefit more from eating mostly warm and cooked foods, as their bodies tend to be cool by nature.
A Kapha’s AGNI may easily get “subdued” by a lot of raw food, and a Vata, whose AGNI is
“changeable” can become constipated, nervous, and depressed if he eats too much of it. But, whatever
body-type you are, start trusting your intuition and listening to the signals from your body each and every
moment of the day. One day you may have eaten a particular food such as a bar of chocolate and the next
day you suffer a headache. If you ate a salad or fruit for supper, you may feel sluggish and irritable the
next morning, because it has fermented in your intestines during the night. Nobody knows your body
better than you do.
If you feel inclined to only eating raw, unprepared foods, it means that your body may require
cleansing. Still, keep listening to your body’s signals of comfort and discomfort. If one day you get an
aversion to these foods, return to a mixed diet immediately because your body is telling you that it has
had enough and can no longer cope with so many toxic and irritating antigens. A cleanse consisting of
raw vegetables or their juices has saved many people’s lives by triggering a strong immune response. This
helped remove toxic waste that may have lingered in the intestinal tract for many years. The body usually
sends a clear message of discomfort when the antibodies begin to damage the intestines, which is the time
to stop the cleansing.
Your physical needs, emotional state, behavior, digestive ability, environmental factors, geographic
conditions, and many other influences determine what kind of food, of what quality and how much of it
your body requires each new day. You are not a machine that runs with one specific fuel oil; you are a
living organism that is changing every moment according to uncountable influences. By increasingly
relying on the body’s wisdom and natural instinct regarding the choice of food we can break out of the
man-made, restrictive rules of nutrition and discover what we really need to nourish ourselves.