David Wolfe talks about "hybrid food" in his book, "The Sunfood Diet Success System." Wolfe is majorly raw vegan and he speaks of creating karmic debt by consuming "negatively charged" foods (such as meat), but I still get a lot out of the book. I like to look through it. And my sis left it here at the house.
Excerpt from an interview with Wolfe online (
http://www.living-foods.com/articles/sunfooddiet.html):
[Question: You refer a lot in your book and in your lectures to the importance of eating wild foods and the dangers of hybrid foods. Can you explain what you mean by "hybrid" and why it is that much of a problem?
Answer: Hybridized foods are genetically altered foods. They are foods which will not survive in nature without human protection. They are strains of foods which have been artificially bred together to appeal to the numb tastebuds of cooked-food eaters. For example, beets in the natural state are 4% sugar. Beets in the supermarket are 17% sugar. The same holds true for carrots. Most fruits and vegetables, even if organic, are genetically altered to some degree. The best guideline is to avoid seedless fruits of any kind. Also, in terms of vegetables: carrots, beets, and potatoes should be avoided. Nearly all legumes are weak hybrid strains and should be avoided.
JEAA: So carrot juice is not okay?
David Wolfe: The big orange carrots found in stores, even if organic, are unnatural, artificial creations. Those carrots will not grow in nature. If you plant one of those carrots in your backyard, the bugs, insects, worms, and bacteria will have a field day and chomp that carrot up in about 3 days. Juicing those carrots and drinking them releases so much hybridized sugar into your digestive system at once that the body doesn't know how to handle it! You will feel a sugar high, then the pancreas will insulinize the blood to remove the sugar, you will feel drowsy, and then you will urinate away whatever of that sugar is left in the blood.]
From the book:
"As a general guideline, fruits which have been hybridized too far include all seedless fruits or fruits with non-viable seeds. These fruits should be avoided, because they are genetically altered and weak."
"Hybrid fruit is not only unnaturally high in sugar, but is also low in minerals... Hybrid foods are devoid of the proper mineral balance all wild foods contain. Excessive hybrid fruit consumption leads to mineral deficiencies... an overconsumption of hybrid sweet fruit and sweet/starchy vegetables causes the body to bring heavy minerals from the bones into the blood to buffer the hybrid sugar..."
"Many primitive peoples, and all wild primates, eat foods from at least 100 varieties of plants. The majority of the world's population now, on civilization's various diets, consume only 13 varieties of plants: bananas, beans, beets (beet-derived sugar), corn, oranges, potatoes, rice, wheat, soy beans, sugar cane, sweet potato, cassava and coconut. The first 9 of these 13 listed are such hybridized foods (or genetically modified) that they are either seedless or produce seeds incapable of surviving independently in Nature."
He also discusses how "hybrid foods are attacked by different forms of fungi than wild food. Hybrid foods are much more susceptible to early decay..."
"From these types of observations, it is clear how hybrid fruit can feed fungal conditions in the body, such as candida. Whereas non-hybrid or wild fruit does not trigger such a condition." That may not be true for everyone, but he discusses candida a lot and if one were pretty "healthy" (whatever that definition is) and tried his suggestions on "Eating to Overcome Candida," one with previous candida issues might be able to handle wild, non-hybrid fruit (whereas one might still experience candida with wild fruit if on SAD). Opting to eat wild fruits and vegetables (if you eat fruits and/or vegetables) definitely feels more paleo and primal.
I haven't been eating a lot of fruit lately (except indulging occasionally in organic pineapple - yay, they had seeds - and organic cherries - I <3 cherry season), but I've been trying out the organic wild greens at my farmers market - some dandelion... purslane... and doctor choy? I think that's what the sign said, but now I'm not totally sure... hm.
