If disease and illness is seen in its true state, a lack of health and not the consequences of “invading” germs, then how are contagious diseases possible? Everybody knows of outbreaks of certain illnesses like flu and how it  seems to go in cycles or “make the rounds.” Everybody has heard of outbreaks of certain illnesses on a cruise ship or in an office building, and, if asked, would probably respond that germs or viruses were the culprits involved in causing the illness.

There are some in the raw-food communities that claim there are no such things as contagious disease and that all sickness is the result of poor health and not that of invading germs. Since it is rather hard to deny certain patterns of illness, it should be noted that there are circumstances where sickness does come from outside the body, but sickness from these sources still relies more on the state of your body when it comes into contact with it than it does from being “invaded.” Nancy Appleton, PhD, wrote of the two main ways to contract an infectious disease in The Curse of Louis Pasteur:

It is possible to get an infectious disease in one of either two ways. The first is through a toxic terrain, where the body’s own cells have [changed] from healthy to unhealthy bacteria. The second is through exposure to someone else who is ill. If a sickness lingers for days with sneezes, a cough and runny nose, or if it develops into something more serious, you know you have a compromised immune system.

While there are no guarantees with life, a person who changes his diet and lifestyle to a Wellsville Diet-type of program or other raw food program that provides at least 75% of its food in a raw, uncooked state — and includes getting plenty of fresh air, exercise, sunshine, etc. —  will find he gets sick about 90% less than when on the SAD diet (Standard American Diet). And if sickness does occur, as Nancy Appleton pointed out, it will be very mild and short lived. A person who has made the correct diet and lifestyle changes may find that an illness that incapacitates a SAD-diet eating family member or friend for days or more, may only cause a little extra fatigue or other very mild symptoms that last about a day, if it does anything at all. There are numerous testimonies from those on raw-food diets who say they have gone many years without any illness whatsoever.

Dr. Edward Howell wrote in, Enzyme Nutrition, “An African watering hole supplies drinking water to hundreds of animals, and although it is dirty and carries dozens of questionable and possibly carcinogenic chemicals, none of them become ill from it. The animals are protected by their superb body chemistry and maintained by a raw diet from which no enzyme nutrients have been removed.”

The reason that the animals do not become sick from drinking questionable water is because they are so healthy from eating their normal diets that their bodies do not provide an environment for the bad germs to live and flourish in. The mere fact that so many people on Wellsville Diet-type programs report a major decrease in routine illnesses and even the reversal of chronic disease should be an indication that it is much closer to the proper diet for humans than either the SAD diet or other fad diets, especially those diets very high in cooked animal products.