Bacteria - my understanding - is this right?

[maxscan]

Ok, so from reading the AV books and a load of posts on the forum I have a new understanding of bacteria to my previous conventional scientific thinking - just wanted to run it by everyone and see if I'm on the right track - I keep having to explain myself to people and don't want to mislead...

So, my understanding is that:

• There are two main types of bacteria involved in regards to food & food 'safety' - spoilage bacteria (not sure of any particular strains) & pathogenic bacteria (by which I mean e.coli, salmonella)
• Spoilage bacteria make food go off or high and it doesn't matter if you eat them and in fact can be beneficial eg hanging of meat, high meat etc.
• Spoilage bacteria is present in the food already?
• The activity of spoilage bacteria becomes obvious and visible over time ie the food rots, whereas pathogenic bacteria do not produce visible changes in the food
• Pathogenic bacteria are generally not found in food unless there has been some sort of cross-contamination - ie if you left a piece of meat in a controlled environment, pathogenic bacteria would only exist / multiply if they were already present in the meat due to previous cross-contamination?
• All bacteria, including pathogens, can be benign or even beneficial (eg the AV stuff about e.coli as a cancer cure and some tribes eating faeces as part of their diet)  - it is generally when an environment is unbalanced that a particular strain of bacteria can dominate or mutate and cause problems (eg e.coli in grain fed cows is far more dangerous to humans than the e.coli strains found in grass fed cows)

Does this make sense or am I talking rubbish? (probably quite likely!)

[Susan]

Here is my understanding of bacteria and other microorganism:

The idea that there are pathogenic bacteria, parasites and viruses which can harm the human health is old but nevertheless wrong. Maybe we can classify all types of bacteria and other microorganism "spoilage bacteria" or "spoilage microorganism" because with the help of these small organisms a "higher" being like man can purify himself. Sometimes the cleaning is so extensive that life is endangered, but in most cases the organism is healthier and stronger after an so called infection with pathogenic organism. Sometimes even bacterias, parasites and viruses are overwhelmed with an intoxicated body and the result are so called chronical diseases.

If so called pathogenic organism are really responsible for infectious diseases, every organism coming in contact with them would suffer. But I think nobody has observed this. On the contrary some organism will become ill some not. It depends on the internal environment of the organism. E. coli for example is a harmless resident of the intestine. It becomes "pathogenic" when an organism is overloaded with spoilage.

[TylerDurden]

Last point was correct, maxscan. Simply put, like the poster said above, so-called "dangerous" bacteria are quite harmless residents in the human gut. The only problems one can get with bacteria are if one is eating very unhealthy foods such as grainfed meats/cooked meats etc.

Eating aged, cooked foods is the biggest no-no., for obvious reasons.

[maxscan]

Hi Susan, Tyler

Thanks for the clarification - and I had in indeed forgotten about Bechamp's work that AV raises - so, would this be better:

• Bacteria are not a cause of disease but instead a sign of an unhealthy environment - any breakdown they perform is actually a cleansing function.
• If one's system is healthy, naturally occurring bacteria will not thrive to the extent that they will cause problems - it is only when the individual is unhealthy that bacteria will perform a cleansing function which is mistaken as the 'disease' itself.
• Eliminating bacteria may allow an unhealthy body to continue functioning longer but eventually the body will break down because the 'disease' is still there, it is just no longer being highlighted by the presence of bacteria. This break down is what we commonly understand as chronic disease.

(effectively I'm paraphrasing what Susan said I think...)

All this said, Tyler's last point about aged cooked foods confuses me a little in that these will likely make one ill (and I assume this is because of the bacteria) so I have trouble finding an explanation that fits with the above.

I'm guessing the fact that the food is cooked makes it an unhealthy environment and this is why bacteria thrives? Also it is an unnatural environment and perhaps because of this stronger or mutated forms of bacteria thrive and your body cannot regulate this type of bacteria and, because they are stronger, they are more likely to cleanse healthy tissue? Or perhaps it's the large numbers of bacteria and these overwhelm the body's controls?

So... this makes me wonder if there is an element of acclimatisation to bacteria if one has only recently started eating raw - in that their body is likely in need of cleansing and so perhaps some care should be taken with exposure to bacteria until the body has (re)learned / is healthier and therefore able to regulate bacteria so the cleansing process doesn't go unchecked?

Apologies if I'm being over-complicated - I realise I am fairly new and therefore have quite a bit of residual fear of bacteria as a result of years of conventional thinking (& scaremongering cleaning product advertisers!) - it just seems to me that in certain circumstances bacteria can still pose a danger to humans and so perhaps should be avoided in those cases whether because they are in large concentration or of a different form to that found under natural conditions... does that sound right?

[TylerDurden]

That's correct. The idea is that toxins in the cooked foods(things like AGEs(advanced glycation end products) interact with the bacteria to make them harmful. So bacteria plus healthy environment equals good, bacteria plus unhealthy environment(grainfed meats or cooked/processed foods equals bad).

[maxscan]

Thanks for clarifying - I've started reading 'Bechamp or Pasteur' just to get a bit more of a handle on it - really eye opening - guess I've just had 30 plus years of germ theory drummed into me and finding it hard to let go! The sad thing is it makes you realise just how much harm modern medicine does to people - we look back on blood letting & leeches with horror - in a hundred years time they'll be looking back at pharmacy with even more incredulity...

[raw-al]

My take is that you are all correct and additionally the bacteria is a necessary component of our body without which we would die from not being able to digest food or cleanse ourselves internally. Thus the reason for high meat, etc., to repopulate our bodies with bacteria.

Our body is constantly waging a war against a number of substances and microorganisms via the immune system. When we are healthy and all the channels are flowing freely, the bacteria are essentially in a symbiotic or mutually beneficial relationship with us.