Update - We've incorporated a bunch of things including a homeopathic remedy and supplements but we are now on day 5 of the D3. He sounds better to me! We can't know if it's the D3 or not but the man has researched it thoroughly and is now convinced that it is great for him no matter what. He keeps on giving me little bits and pieces like "Did you know that the New England Journal of Medicine is saying that there are over a BILLION people that are D3 deficient?" and "It can take a long time for someone who is very deficient to rebuild their stores." etc. After he is completely better we will take away the specific allergy supports and see how he does on just the D3. He is also now going to get his D3 levels tested.

So far - so good! Keep the suggestions coming if you have any please. 

I make kombucha. The difference between correctly home-made and store-bought is gigantic. Kombucha is made with sugar but should have no sugar left in it when you drink it. The sugar should be used by the scoby. Also, capping off the kombucha to make it bubbly makes alcohol and carbon-dioxide - neither of which is good for you. That's why traditionally you put a cloth over the kombucha so these things are released. Home-made kombucha is more like vinegar than the bubbly sugar drink that most people think of it as.

Once you know how to make it, it's almost impossible to get sick unless you are a complete do-do. It's quite clear if your scoby is healthy or not.

Hi GS. Checking in and seeing that you are still making progress - which is good news.

Remember when your wife gave your son cooked sweet potatoes and he pooped lots. Sometimes, for some people, meat can move slowly and be constipating. From what you wrote about what you are feeding him, there is almost no fiber. White rice also has no fiber - it has been removed. Would your family at least be willing to give your son whole brown rice instead of the white rice that has been stripped to make it into empty and totally useless empty carb calories?

When I make orange juice I make it differently and this might help if possible. Instead of squeezing oranges or using any of the usual juicers I use a centrifugal juicer (mines a breville). I peel the oranges leaving a little bit of the white (navels leave almost none and juicy valencias leave more) and I put the whole orange through the juicer so that it is creamy. This makes the sugars of the juice absorb a bit slower, adds some fiber and especially - the bioflavanoids that are so very important. Besides - it tastes AMAZING - so much better than regular oj. Regular makes me feel unbalanced but this kind of juice makes me feel great.

There are some herbs that cause peristalsis, but that seems wrong somehow. The boy needs to be able to move his bowels on his own. He might be having some leaky bowel symptoms where when he poops some of the toxins get into his bloodstream because of the peristalsis. I would be giving the child a demulcent myself to coat the intestines and protect them to allow them to heal. Enemas are intense for an adult, let alone a child. Sometimes they are needed, but if you can create another way it would be much better. I understand where you are heading towards is the ultimate healing and yet again, I keep on thinking about the process to move towards that ultimate goal. Most people cannot move their bowels every day without fiber. Transitioning to an all or mostly meat diet will involve a bit bowel transition. Going back and forth from raw meat to cooked fiberless rice sounds so very difficult for a young and sick system.

If it were my child I would have the goal of moving in the right direction, no matter how slow it is, with the child pooping on their own and include whatever foods are necessary.

I understand that you are doing this with your wife and have to agree as a team. Perhaps, what might be the best is to figure out together what compromises would be best. Instead of white rice, maybe cooked sweet potatoes which have already shown to move his bowels well? Things like that. Maybe think of your wife as part of your team that you can plan with?

Maybe all together as a team you can muscle test the boy before eating anything? That might be fun for him to learn. Maybe you could teach him how to do that for you too and then he can feel powerful about getting you to eat certain things instead of others just like he has to?

Hope some of these ideas might be useful. I'll check in later again today and then probably will need to be away again for a while. Again - you're doing very well and I wish you all the best.

Nerve damage - that's a tough one. Even loves bugs. Sigh. Why not eggs though? Can you get a few chickens without a rooster so that the eggs would never hatch any way and he can treat the chickens really well and eat those eggs? It's gotta be better than not having any source of really good fats for his nervous system I would think. I know it might seem silly to raise inferior eggs to those great fertile eggs you get - but if it's a way to get him to eat them.... Is he an teenager now? He could then handle the responsibility probably.

I've been reading a bit about the nervous system and oat straw tincture is supposed to be an excellent tonic herb for the nerves and quite restorative and it's completely vegan for him. I have some "brewing" now which is ready to be strained and can't wait to try some with hubbie (and I figure it wouldn't hurt to give some to me these days either!)

I'll look up dip wick. Thanks. I'd love to have some home-made candles!

I am currently reading "Uncommon Grounds The History of Coffee and How it Transformed our World". It's fascinating. So much slavery, repression of classes, murder and massive social unrest and outrageous intrigues tied up with those little beans!

Green tea and some black teas have cancer-fighting properties and can't be much compared to coffee in most ways. Herb teas are in another department entirely.

I often wondered if one could chew on the beans what they would taste like and what effect if any they would have. The mythical discovery of coffee was the story of a goat herder seeing his goats dance from eating the beans so he ate them too and then danced. I used to have lots of mock coffee plants at one home of mine, but you couldn't eat them. I often thought I'd ordered a coffee plant just to see the difference between the bean and what we make out of it. I think of doing this with cacao nuts one day too. I think I could grow both in a greenhouse. I'm just very curious.

Ah, yes, my apologies Tooterbelle.

Maybe I got the heat too high in the process because it was stovetop and not crockpot - but I wasn't going to buy a crockpot if he hated the stuff or we felt bad. Maybe I have to buy one jut to know. 

Google huh? Gonna make me work are ya? Dam - it's cooked fat - when I come to think about it I really should just chuck it.

I would like to add something:

I don't think this negative approach does raw paleo service.

 If I wanted to make a point with such an approach that RAFs are bad all I would have to do is post lots of pictures of me looking great and much healthier (and dramatically younger) of my self with my earlier diets (taken professionally with amazing lighting and I have some with the best professional makeup as well) and then myself now by any Joe Schmo. My hair suddenly turned very gray, I gained between 20 and 30 pounds and I look terrible (which could easily be made to look worse just by not having a good photographer, bad posing and head tilt, bad lighting, no tan and no makeup). How bad I look has started since adding RAFs to my diet. Without any more information and just pictures it would be an open and shut case against RAFs which was the only difference in my diet. But....... what would be left out is that I went through a horrible trauma and an amount of stress that I didn't think was sustainable by a human, while going a week at a time without sleeping and then the death of my mother that I was caring for 24 hours a day in a situation that was so traumatic that I wouldn't even want to describe it. What also would not be evident from a picture is that when I was up all night for about half a year the only thing that kept me going and helped me not to die and preserve my brain and sanity (in my own opinion) was wanting to eat and only eating salmon and raw egg yolks all night. When I stopped having to stay up all night my weight suddenly shot up. Since adding red meat to my diet I look even worse because I started to eat red meat right after my mother died and I was in shock, mourning and collapse from the stress.

That lady on the left that I know absolutely nothing about and for all I know might have healed herself of an incurable disease from which she would be dead 10 years ago or might have been a life-long cripple until she started doing what she is doing or have gone through some real stress when the lady on the right didn't or even lead a life of leisure and had health starting in the womb - I know almost nothing about either of them from those pictures or the statements below them let alone their genetics or how their parents ate. I know nothing of her claims and to assume that every vegan, raw vegan or vegetarian claims to be able to get younger as they age is blatantly not true because I never even heard of such a thing until recently and the only reason I ate that way was because I felt better than when I didn't. Attacking a person for something without showing that they claim that their diet makes someone look younger and younger, is very unfair.

I saw in the other raw forum I was in before coming here that raw vegans make all sorts of claims based on pictures of how good or bad people look including RAFers and meat eaters. There are some raw vegans that look better than some meat eaters. It proves nothing and I used to argue this logical point all the time on those forums until I realize that there was no talking logic with firm believers of a certain approach.

So, if this is going to be about the belief that a certain diet is better and pasting in the pictures that support that belief and not on logic, then I will likely get myself just as frustrated here as I did with the raw vegans.

I don't have time tonight to read both PP and KD's posts so this is just to KD.

You proved my point exactly. If they had posted before and after shots of the same woman  at least there would maybe be even a shred of pertinence, but this is about two completely different women! The comparison of these two women is meaningless and cruel. I have no idea what if any claims the first woman makes about reversing aging  - does she make such claims or is she just saying that detoxifying is healthier than not?

I had thought that this group seemed a bit kinder and gentler than the raw groups, but alas, looks like none of you are ever going to see a picture of me either!

Ok, gotta ask probably what might sound like a stupid question, but how is fat rendered and what's the difference between that and the stuff on the top of the pot? Does anyone ever eat that thick layer of fat or use it for anything except a dog treat?

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that stock makes feel bad. Thanks for letting me know.

KD - your story is impressive and telling. I recently read that people's abilities to create vitamin D can fluctuate from person to person a good deal.

Cherimoya, we went to the store with the greatest variety of supplements yesterday and were able to find 5000 in one pill with virgin olive oil (they didn't have the Now brand). The other bottle we bought of 400 was gone in a day because we had to take such a large number of pills to get to 5000. Thanks for the heads up on the night time and sleep.

I for one cannot eat the bone stock I made. I broke out (haven't done that in ages) and felt sick both times I tried it. My body really hates cooked animal foods and fats more than anything except sugar. We can't tell if it hurts or helps hubbie because he feels crappy all the time these days with his allergies no matte what he eats. My beagle really loves the stuff though. ;-) It's really goopy and there is a very thick layer of fat on the top. Do y'all eat that cooked fat? Is that considered rendered fat?

I've seen those pictures and think it's pretty stupid. We have not one piece of information on genetics, childhood diet, parents' diet, overall lifestyle, exposure to toxins, previous diseases or what either of these women would look like on the other one's diet.