Kids Getting Taken Away From Raw Foodists?

[ManyLittles]

I was on another website and saw Victoria Boutenko had posted that she knows of five families who have lost their children or are in danger of losing them because they are fed raw food. Does anyone else know people with this problem? Has anyone encountered this?

My kids are only a little raw now, plan to go up to 75%. Not sure beyond that, may go farther. If I do go 100% raw with the kids, though, you can bet your last dollar I won't tell anyone! Does anyone else hide how raw their kids are eating?

[prana]

Could I ask where you read the comments make by Victoria? Thanks.

[Stina]

Off the topic: yeah, it represents a bigger issue, of how people are almost cult-like about their consumption of animal products. I think it's guilt propelled.

[beppa66]

Strange isn't it? That kids could be fed nothing but fast food and garbage and be morbidly obese but no one would dream of taking their children away. I hadn't heard of this either.

[Tiffany]

Yes, there are some documented cases of this with extreme circumstances - the Andrhessons (sp?) David Jubb and Hygeia Halfmoon are three that I can think of right now. The first their baby died of a rare disease that I *think* would have been fatal in any case, had the family been raw or not. David Jubb was in the middle of some kind of custody dispute with his son's mother and was called out by CPS for failing to take his two year old son with a fractured foot to the emergency room and instead fashioning a makeshift splint for him.

Hygeia Halfmoon's 13 year old daughter was impregnated (with Hygia's blessing) by a 25 year old man. According to Hygeia, she was letting her daughter practice her sexual and romantic freedom. They were found out by the authorities, daughter was taken away and eventually miscarried.

I don't know. My family is raw and my son will likely be raw (he's only 8 months old right now) but I do find that some raw families practice some pretty extreme lifestyles in addition to their dietary choices. I don't pass judgement on any practice that doesn't harm a child, but I think that we should pick our battles.

If we have something to prove, we should think about whose expense we will be making our point. Is it ultimately more important to protect our children and keep them in our care, or to flaunt our alternative lifestyles and try to fly in the face of the system? If you know something you are doing is illegal, why flaunt it to make a point? Your children could be taken away and harmed much more by being pumped full of garbage, separated from you, and put through the foster care system than if you were just to sacrifice one aspect of your lifestyle that you hold dear and find other ways to change society rather than by practices that could result in your family being ripped apart. Immature, selfish choices and lack of foresight may result in sad consequences. In some cases, possibly for the Andrehssons, it really was a tragedy and they may be victims of the system.

[Ginger]

The first their baby died of a rare disease that I *think* would have been fatal in any case, had the family been raw or not..

The familys diet was what helped the baby to live much longer then expected. Usually with that type of condition a baby only lives weeks from what I read.

[ManyLittles]

Prana: I believe it was somewhere posted as a comment to something on We Like It Raw...not sure, I'll see if I can find it again. It had been signed "Victoria" with a link to her site.

Stina: The same could be and has been said about vegetarians. I'm personally not interested in getting into a debate, knowing how many people are morally against eating meat on here, but I am not morally opposed to the eating of meat (not conventional...free range organic).

Tiffany: Wow...yeah, I'd agree some people do have some extreme...um...choices. :eek: I hadn't heard of those cases. That's tragic about the baby that died. It's so sad to see a baby get a disease.

Thanks for the responses. I was just curious. I know I've heard stories in the media over the years of vegans who were being harassed...although in some cases, rightly (IF you can believe what the media said, which many times you can't). I think it's great when parents educate themselves and think outside the mainstream brainwashing on health topics. But it's sad when they can't be responsible enough to monitor how their children are progressing, at the same time.

The only time I've been given a hard time about my health choices for my kids is when I've told doctors that we don't immunize our kids. But even then they usually just want to throw a bunch of pamphlets at me. Kind of funny...every pamphlet says the same exact thing, but they give me at least ten different ones, lol. I'm not sure if it's because they think I'm that stupid, that I need to read it ten times, or because they're hoping to brainwash me. :rolleyes:

[ManyLittles]

I found the original page and comment from Victoria that inspired my question. It was a post regarding the show Wife Swap trying to find a gullible raw family to expose their family on national tv for a quick buck (that $20,000 they offer would be used up pretty quick on legal fees fighting to get the kids back after thousands of ignorant viewers tuned in any raw family that fell for this).

The first link is the original post, which also contains Victoria's comment. The second is a follow-up post.

http://www.welikeitraw.com/rawfood/2006/11/abcs_wife_swap_.html

http://www.welikeitraw.com/rawfood/2006/12/more_on_abcs_wi.html

[yamiam]

that is just terrible to take away a child because they are eating the best food on the planet. Shame on them! I don't accept that as a soulution to child neglect, but encouraging it!! By that I mean, if they are forcing a family to eat cooked to keep their children and the children get sick and suffer from it, it's the peoples fault that are trying to take the children away, not the parents.

This is a crazy, mixed up world.

[ManyLittles]

By the way, if anyone is interested, I looked up the family they ended up using in the Wife Swap show last year. I read the interview, manual, and rules for that family. Of course, they chose an extreme family, who eats raw veggies but also raw meat and dairy. I have no problem with the raw milk and butter--if you're going to have dairy, that is the way to go. Even eggs, if you produce them yourself, shouldn't be a major issue. But raw meat?

Well, I'm not going to judge, since people would think the way I eat is just as crazy. I do believe that people are germophobic nowadays, and that most bad press that meat gets is due to the "industrialization" and cruelty of modern meat processing. I don't think you'd get all those diseases like e coli and mad cow if you raised it, properly, yourself. None of that was a major issue until recent years. But I don't know that I could overcome my upbringing and make myself eat raw meat, even if I did come to believe it was a good thing. I'm curious where the family got their information on it.

I've read a lot of stuff online about the show and this family...how their house was supposedly dirty and disgusting, and they ate "rotten" meat and "out of date" eggs. I'd be willing to bet a million bucks that these allegations were exaggerations and lies by ABC (who, by the way, promised that the raw family would not be portrayed in a bad light....hahahaha). If they raise the eggs themselves, how on earth would you know if they were "out of date"? And anyone who REALLY knows anything about eggs, knows that the date is an arbitrary FDA thing, and you can tell if an egg goes bad if it floats to the top of a pan of water. Eggs last a good while, and if it's not hot in your house, they don't even necessarily have to be refrigerated (I know, germophobes will freak, hearing that, but it's true). Did you know milk--raw milk--left on the counter will not go bad? It will just turn into yogurt, then cheese.

Also, the Haigwood woman on Wife Swap said the week before the swap was really crazy, with the camera crew following them around. They had no time to clean, so the house looked bad. I bet ABC really capitalized on that. It doesn't sound like the family's philosophy on cleaning is up to my standards, but I'm not judging them for that. Overall, they sound kind of cool, even if I don't accept everything they believe in.

The show tried to make it look like the kids weren't schooled, when in reality, though the family believes in unschooling, they follow the state laws and have some kind of a tutor or somebody overseeing their program. ABC totally took that out of context, too.

Now, my point in all this isn't to sell anyone on eating meat, or raw meat. (I sure don't want to get into a meat good/meat bad argument!) But I just thought I'd update anyone interested in the story. I'm always interested in those who lead a "homesteading" type of life, and buck the system a little bit. I wish they had a blog.

Oh, and as predicted, they got a lot of harassing calls about the show. Don't know if anyone "turned them in", but I wouldn't be surprised. The swap mom did drag the kids to the doctor, and apparently they are totally healthy. And you have to believe that upon hearing of the children's diet, that doctor would have been drooling for the opportunity to make the raw mom look bad and pronounce the children sick, if he could. That poor mom was vilified on national tv and all over the internet. Sounds to me that if nothing else, she is a mom who is concerned that her children are brought up healthy and happy, and in a close-knit family, whatever anyone may think of her choices. I hope they are doing well.

[justinesmith]

I actually saw a clip of that particular show and it was awful. The house was a mess and the husband was crying in the bathroom screaming about how the "new wife" was going to kill his children by feeding them cooked food. They were absolutely not portrayed well ~ and it is a shame. It is really unfortunate that T.V. ratings mean more than anything else and it is only good T.V. to show what most would consider "crazy". Yes, they were extreme but aren't we all extreme at one point or another? Really a shame.

And I also am very careful who I talk to about being raw and not vaccinating ~ you just never know who you are talking too..... I actually had a nurse tell me once that you HAVE to feed children mac and cheese or they don't get any calcuim and she believed every word of what she was saying. I also had another nurse tell me how to "get my girls to calm down" by giving them motrin and benedryl. Um, O.k. Extreme? Yes to me, but to not to most. So very sad...... :(

[ManyLittles]

Wow Justine, now that is extreme. Even if someone thinks cooked food is a good thing, what kind of health professional in their right mind thinks mac and cheese is necessary and healthy, rather than a glass of milk?! :confused: Even if they choose mac and cheese for their own kids, they should be smart enough to at least know that that stuff is soooo processed, and not healthy OR necessary. That "cheese" isn't cheese at all! Sheesh! And these are the people we're supposed to go to for health advice? :rolleyes: