Customer Reviews

Love Your Body

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Since the publication of Love Your Body in 1972 (I still have my store-bought first edition), there have been many non-cook cookbooks - all welcome. I recently saw one - at Whole Foods (where the wealthy shop in California - good thing it's worker-owned - one might feel guilty - I always think about Fallujah when I'm there - esp. in the sumptuous Mill Valley store) pictures of a beautiful couple preparing live food dishes - lavish production. Cost : $40.00 something. I personally entertain no doubt that, one day, when we get over the `have/have not' hump (maybe `before', if we actually could plant enough fruit trees), we will all be thriving on diets of `living food' - perhaps Viktoras coined that phrase also. I am of the firm conviction that humanity will relegate flesh-food eating to the scrap-heap of obsolete practices - and, like its terrifying derivative, cannibalism, meat-eating will be practiced in but few remote regions of the planet. But, I also feel that such a transition will not be painless (i.e., there is a logical necessity impelling such a change). That being said, promulgators and inveterate customers of such high-minded, liberal institutions as Weinerschnitzal and McDonalds will inevitably find themselves pleasantly ensconced in such tranquil venues as cocytis as Dante envisioned it - icy rivers of innocently shed blood. Plus c'est change, plus ca meme.

The question which the book raises and eloquently and precisely answers in the affirmative is: Is there more to health than the moral basis of veganism? There is more - and that is where Viktoras Kulvinskas - in my opinion, the most profound biochemical researcher of the twentieth century, rises, unheralded to this day (much in the way of Thoreau - whom I sense must have had a similar presence), to our rescue. Of course, there is a moral afflatus. When Viktoras says, "Love your Body or leave it", he is stating categorical spiritual truth as well as material fact.

Viktoras' mastery of the facts is not to be discounted. This book not only changed my life, but saved it. When I first started eating primarily according to the regime suggested in Love Your Body, I was dying (not metaphorically) of a debilitating intestinal disorder. This disease had raged through my body and being for four years (ages 22 - 26). I had experienced the tortures of traditional slash and burn medicine to the nth degree cubed, deep down. Alone I stood, daily peering into the crack of doom. When I picked up Love Your Body, as simple and svelte as the volume is, I did not realize what would take me years to understand. For instance, I had to be physically shown how to make rejuvelac and grow wheatgrass. Yet, the instructions are clearly given here. When I first read the book, I didn't understand the importance of every aspect of the diet being described. However, by simply using the basic recipes - and eating strictly fresh and raw - with a lot of prayer - and a minimal degree of self-control - I began to heal. My testimonial is but one. Yet, know that I was desperate - and a high-enzyme diet of live food, juicy fruit (citrus, pineapple, watermelon juice - I learned to grate pineapple and watermelon to juice them from J. Lovewisdom - an old mentor of Viktoras), freshly juiced wheatgrass and sprouts, is the only diet that have I found to provide the biological equilibrium in which healing can occur. From my perspective, a live food diet appears to be pre-requisite to true health.

Love Your Body is much more than the first and best "post-modern" live food preparation manual - the book initiated a revolution not yet close to completion or fulfillment. If you are investigating the possibility of a live-food diet because you are sick - please, please buy this book - the information here is priceless. I would also say that perhaps the only way to survive a nuclear holocaust is through indoor gardening, breatharianism, and some form of yoga, and love (Viktoras' recipe). But who knows? Eh? All I know is, despite cooked food binges, and decades of stress, I'm still eating sprout soup - and I believe I always will. As they used to say in those letters - Thanks Vik! and much love love love love love love love thru lovein service ... forever.

What a wonderful new world being vegan was back in the early seventies, and how precious Viktoras's LOVE YOUR BODY and Dick Gregory's COOKING WITH MOTHER NATURE were, and the joys of having the home decorated with trays of growing wheatgrass, buckwheat lettuce and sunflower greens! And over 35 years later, it's still fun.

And the joys of good health -- feeling so much better than I did in high school! -- and clarity of mind make me very grateful to Viktoras and Dick Gregory and Arnold Ehret and Ann Wigmore who guided so many of us on the right path.

You'll love this book if You get it.

As a raw vegan author now myself, I really appreciate all the love, and care, and passion for life that went into these books. Joyous reading.