(Interview at Televenezia-Mestre on 16 May 2011)

PERSONAL CURRICULUM

I am a Udinese fellow living frequently in the Orient, but with a touch of Venetian, since on my paternal house in Tavagnacco there is still a ‘600 original paint with the San Marco stem on it. Thousand trips to Asia in the last 30 years make me feel kind of a Marco Polo of the modern times. Even possessing some piece of paper in economy, philosophy and naturopathy, I am not a medical doctor and I am not an official nutritionist, therefore I consider myself an overstepper, and also an autodidact scientific researcher.

A HEALTH AND BEHAVIOURAL TEACHER ON-LINE

Not for sure a healer, not a guru, not a shaman, not a holy man. I accept to be called a journalist, a writer, a online health teacher. My blog www.valdovaccaro.com seems to be among the most read in Italy with thousands of readers and people who got benefits.

HYGIENE IS A SUBJECT WITH STRONG GREEK-ROMAN, ITALIAN AND VENETIAN COMPONENTS

What is then this mysterious object called Natural Hygiene? And what is in particular the so called VVV Hygiene Scheme, where VVV means Valdo Vaccaro Vegan? You say Natural Hygiene and you immediately think of John Tilden and Herbert Shelton, and go with your mind to the USA. But this subject is essentially an Italian matter thanks to Phytagoras from Crotone, San Francesco from Assisi, Leonardo da Vinci from Vinci (beyond the various Gerolamo Savonarola, Giordano Bruno, Raffaello), and is also strongly venetian, thanks to the noble Luigi Alvise Cornaro (1475-1566) who wrote the first real hygiene treatise of the modern history, entitled “Intorno alla vita sobria” (About the sober life), a book that got famous more in USA than in Italy or in Venice itself.

CORNARO, AN ENVIED HEALTH SCIENTIST

Cornaro was a pleasure-loving fellow 30 years old, regular frequenter of parties, of friends with the attitude of eating and drinking as much as possible. He got very sick and the medical doctors judged him a finished man, with no more than 3 months left to live. Luckily, Cornaro had absorbed something else from his classic culture and from the famous Salernitana Medical School. He decided to recover by changing his life style, giving up all meat and fish, all stews and wines. At the end he was able to survive not only to his doctors, but also to their sons and nephews, and wrote his hygiene masterpiece about sober life in 1558, when he was almost 90 years old.

A SUBJECT WITHOUT AN ACADEMIC CITINZENSHIP

Natural hygiene as anti-medicine, or as alternative to the medical culture, already at Cornaro’s times then. An extra-academic matter deprived of dignity and of academic citizenship. A poor and vulnerable matter. Never accepted and officially recognized, without any chair, without sponsors, without institutional help, without political and legal protections, without media support. Anything wrong, defective, utopian, damaging, evanescent?

THE HYGIENE HANDICAP IS GOING AGAINST THE STREAM

Anything uneasy and disturbing with natural hygiene? How is it possible that man, rational, intelligent and scientific creature have never picket it up, adopted it, and inserted it systematically in his knowledge and his schools, if there is not any weak point or any disastrous aspect? In effect, hygiene has the ugly defect to tell the truth and to aim for health, without administering brews and potions, without poisoning anybody.

A THORN IN THE FLANK OF THE WORLD SANITARY REGIME

Not for sure a matter loved and appreciated by medical doctors, due to its virtuosity, to its unique and extraordinary efficiency, due to its capacity to deeply criticize operations, cures, medical diagnosis and therapies. Defending health in a world which seems to aspire to a general and stable sickening of people, represents for the medical regime a fastidious thorn in its flank, something intolerable, something to be opposed by all means, material and legal ones.

HEALTH SCIENCE IS UNBELIEVABLY SIMPLE, BASED ON RIGOUR AND EQUILIBRIUM

Natural hygiene matter, as a real health science, is extremely simple, and it is based on the absolute respect of internal and external nature, on the in-out equilibrium, on putting things inside and in sending them regularly out, on the accumulation and the outlet, on stopping the unbalances, the obstructions and the negativities. We put inside pure air (oxygen 20% and protein nitrogen 80%), and then put out vitiated air, or carbon dioxide. We put inside food to send out excrements. We put in drinks and out sweat and urine.

A CONTINUOUS AND DYNAMIC ALTERNATING IN AND OUT, WHERE SENDING OUT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PUTTING IN

Natural hygiene is not then an alternative medicine to be listed among the various techniques alternative to medicine, as homeopathy, macrobiotics, orto-molecular medicine, the flowers of Bach, Ayurveda, oriental medicine, reiki, and others. Natural hygiene is a transversal science which crosses all schools impregnating and filling them, conditioning them, bringing its rationality to all of them. Natural hygiene is an advanced culture, sage and tested by 3000 years of history. It incorporates all the basic principles of Hippocrates, as “Nature is the sovereign healer of all disease”, and all the scientific discoveries made along the centuries, as long as in harmony with the principles and the logic of nature.

EVERYTHING CAN BE SYNTHESIZED IN FEW KEY-POINTS

In practical terms, we talk about life styles, nutritional choices and behavioural principles, all synthesized in few key-points:

1) Breath good air in a correct and diaphragmatic way (by empting your lungs completely, inspiring slowly from the ventral area and upwards, keeping the air, preferably according to the scheme 1-4-2, and always with slow expiration). 2) Drink pure and light water, deprived as much as possible of inorganic and harmful minerals (near to ph 7.00). 3) Eat according to the biochemical human design and in particular respect of your blood, universally fixed on ph 87.30-7.50 (that’s a fructarian and anti-protein blood). Always bring to your mouth the kind of food which gives (raw, natural, innocent and vital food), and not food which steals (thief food, animal-protein food, cooked, sweetened, salted and devitalized food). 4) Get the maximum exposure to the sun and to the air, by exposing your nude skin. Avoid all detrimental tattoo, avoid tight dresses, powders and creams. 5) Take aerobic and transpiration exercises. Walk, run, dance, cycle, swim, jump, play, climb, and drive as little as possible. 6) Relax, stretch, laugh and smile much more frequently. Recharge your batteries. 7) Love and respect yourself and then the people around you, especially the weak and undefended ones, in particular the kids and all the animals. Love and respect is always intended at 360 degrees. 8) Give yourself social motivations, economic, political, cultural, ethical, aesthetical, physical, mental and spiritual motivations.

SOMETHING SIMILAR TO THE COMMANDMENTS TABLES

Not Moses tables, but almost. The more outstanding commandment, even being not mentioned, is always the one saying never kill. Who loves God, who loves himself, who loves the others, cannot be lacking in respect and cannot kill. The principles mentioned above are covering the cultural and the behavioural aspect, the ethical and aesthetical side.

THE THERAPEUTIC ASPECT AND THE NON-INTERFERENCE CURE

As regards the medical-therapeutic aspect, natural hygiene has adopted, in full coherence with Hippocrates, the cure of the non-cure, the cure of not interfering with the immune system, which is at the end the cure of self-healing. The medical intervention means most of the times experimenting and risking, being violent and invasive, dangerous and approximate. Acting medically means proceeding with the presumption to know, but with the blended eyes. Doing little and doing nothing. Doing as little as possible, but doing it at the best. Vaccinations are strictly forbidden. Operations, drugs and integrators are to be used only as the real last resort, in emergency and first aid.

HYGIENE SCIENCE STRONG ENEMY OF QUACKS

Maximum trust in the infallible internal doctor located inside every living creature, named immune system, and located not by case along the gastrointestinal tube, and gifted with 200 lymphatic-nods with a network of microscopic connections with the endocrine system, with the various organs and the cerebral matter. Nobody in the world heals, only the quacks of all kinds, medical and non-medical are pretending to do that. The hygiene teacher does not heal, but he teaches you how to heal, how to self-heal.

THE VVV HYGIENE SCHEME

The VVV scheme is not a specific diet at all. We are talking of a system of life, based as much as possible on raw-natural-innocent food, possibly on biologic and fresh food, with some tolerance towards few little compromises as cooked cereals and cooked potatoes or legumes (minimizing the cooking times, and always preceding them with a plate of raw vegetables), as dark breads, whole pasta, vegan crusty pizza, followed by nuts and almonds. Always maintaining a prevalence in terms of fresh fruits to be eaten in the morning and the afternoon, far from the main meals. For keeping your weight, or for increasing it, an oatmeal with little seeds as sesame, sunflower, flaxseeds, wheat germ, is suggested at half morning.

Valdo Vaccaro (English translation: by the author)