Alex: What do you do? Do you teach or do consultations?
Mitchell: So, what do you do?

Alex: I am the owner of rawguru.com and other raw web sites. I cater raw food events, I go to school, and I am almost ready to release my new raw vegan tooth care products.

Mitchell: Oh really?

Alex: Yes. I have been working on them for quite some times and I think it will help a lot of people if I hurry up and get them out on the market.

Mitchell: I haven't gotten deep into oral care but a lot of people suffer from that. Inadequate oral well being and I know myself, I eat a lot of berries and at least on the teeth when they make contact, they are highly acidic, and that's hard on the enamel and so forth.

Alex: When I went to Portland Oregon, we went to pick black berries, and they were all juicy and ripe but they still hurt my teeth.

Mitchell: One time, I just want to tell you a funny story. I lived on a place, I don't know if you ever heard of it, but it was called "The Farm" It was a spiritual vegan community with thousands of people in the late 1960s and we were farming and we didn't really know about raw food but it was vegan oriented, this was 35yrs ago and we grew a lot of tomatoes, and because we were pretty poor, goodies were very rare and we didn't have any fruit or anything so I was craving for fresh food because sadly a lot of vegans cook enormous amounts at least in those days. I was harvesting tomatoes and ate about 30-40 tomatoes in one day and my mouth had painful sores in it for days. I eat tomatoes very judicially now.

Alex: I love tomatoes, they are one of my favorite fruits. They are so juicy and sweet. A salad is not a salad without one.

Mitchell: Well, fire away and I'll try to respond the best I can.

Alex: What 2 adjectives best describe you and why. Please explain.

Mitchell: Choosing one is a hard thing for me. I will go with what came forth. Ecstatic. And the reason why is because I %100 percent know and believe that that's what we were designed to live as. I have been so fortunate to have come into that field of awareness and experience where I feel the ecstasy both physically and energetically, most of the time. And when I'm not, that is a cue for me that I am out of touch. The reason I eat the way I do is to support my ongoing experience of the physical body being brought in the ecstatic field.

Alex: Is there another adjective that best describes you?

Mitchell: Well I love being surprised. I don't know what the adjective would be for that but I love not knowing what's coming next because I find that life surprises us life and lead to so many new places I wasn't able to imagine on my own. I learn a great deal. I mature a great deal and my capacity to be more alive is expanding.

Alex: Was there anyone person that greatly influenced your life or helped you in a significant way, tell more about that person and I how they helped you.

Mitchell: His name was Jack Gray and this is my mentor who, after I had my accident...I think you might know this story....Over 40 broken bones. We're talking compound fractures, and nerves severed, bone missing, lungs punctured, liver not functioning, loss of eyesight, and a whole host of other medical issues that were not going to be able to respond to traditional medical intervention. This man being studied, apparently had the ability to activate a healing response in people. My case, because it was considered medically impossible is how this man and I met. The moment he came into my life, I knew that this was the man that I would learn something about the secret of life.

Every aspect in coming in touch with my essence, I owe to him. Everything that I learned in depth about healing, I attribute to him. All of my incredible curiosity about how food can affect consciousness, how to preserve the life force in food, how to facilitate life force in food, how to look beyond just the grosser elements of food, meaning the minerals, vitamins and the carbohydrates and amino acids, proteins but to the actual formative forces, and energies, that are behind those and how to recognize them. And also how to protect those when you do come in contact with food and someway intervene with it, weather it's drying it or harvesting it, you can retain that essence and perhaps even potentate it and this man I spent 7 years with. 20 hours a day. He just poured it into me and that was my responsibility to be the carrier of that now. The way that I tried, because Jack was so intrical to creating Pure Synergy, 25 years ago with me based on these principles. That's one of my ways trying to share life energy with others. They can directly access it cellularly. Jack was really the facilitator of my awakening, even though I was deeply trying to awaken on my own and had many experiences of awakening... Ever since being with him, the light has been on ever since. So, that was very meaningful, another person about 25 years ago in the early 70s, who used to send patients to me and I used to send patients to him was Dr. Bernard Jensen. My interaction with him in learning certain things about, how he saw the value of food, and how to prepare it and again the life essence and life energy and how to use nutrition and herbs as a healing force.

Alex: How did you develop Pure Synergy and where do you find all those exotic greens, mushrooms, alage, etc.?

Mitchell: When Jack was working with me and I was in intensive care in the hospital and he would take me into these very deep trances. Now, you got to picture this. I am in intensive care, I have tubes coming out of my orifices, I'm in a cast from my neck down to the bottom of my feet, I'm given no chance of saving my legs and here's a man who is evoking certain forces both within me and around me, to support a healing process in me, that would accelerate a healing experience. It would take me to some pretty wild places, he would chant for hours and he would lay his hands on me. I would learn certain principles of states of consciousness. In those states of consciousness, I became to see geometric patterns and I began to be curious what are the nature of these geometric shapes and patterns, and frequencies, and because we had access to the UCLA medical center, which had unbelievable equipment that could monitor and register these subtle energies beyond the level of our senses can. Whether it was something as simple as Kirlian photography, simple because we had electron microscopes. We had polarized lights, we had shielded energetic devices which can take away all other energies and you can capture a molecular energy and Jack, when I was telling him some of my experiences were, he was saying these are some of the formative forces that you're seeing, that go in what makes up the physical being and that certain planets, certain mushrooms, certain berries, certain vegetables, certain seaweeds, have those patterns more inherently aligned that when we consume them can translate or transfer that information to us as human beings. However, the way those things were harvested or in anyway interacted with, dried, heated, cooked, cut, mixed, would affect weather or not they retained that capability of being a true healing force or just nutrient. So we had to develop many years the special processes, including even the soil preparations, to make sure that everything that we grew, harvested and dried would retain that. The only way that we found to keep it at the highest energy levels was to do it in a vacuum so it wasn't exposed to oxygen. Likewise, to do it at low enough temperatures that I know you and your colleagues will be aware of, would retain all the enzymatic properties and get a low enough moisture content as well. So, if you have low moisture, no oxygen availability while you're drying it, protect it from ultraviolet light, during that process and afterwards. If you can do all those things properly, you can concentrate the energies and retain them properly. Most of the super foods out there, nothing wrong with them, but all they're really providing is high level nutrition. Plenty of protein, plenty of b vitamins, carbs, whatever, all of that is good foundational stuff but it doesn't have regenerative properties. We discovered, and created the equipment to do that and we do that all ourselves and for ourselves. We don't get anything brokered. Everything that we do is done just for Synergy. Either we do it ourselves or we help a company do it specifically for us and we fund the research and fund the project. We do that with over 300 ingredients now. Many companies come to us for materials. Many of them we will make available, some we do not.

Alex: Why don't you make some of the materials unavailable?

Mitchell: Some of our stuff is in a research development stage, some of it, when people realize how expensive it is to do it, they get scared away from it. In Pure Synergy everything is gold. We don't compromise. When you get saffron, true
saffron that is certified organic, literally it's 6-7 thousand dollars a kilo. Most people are used to paying 1-2 thousand. They don't want to pay the 6-7 thousand. All of our ingredients are that way. We have to do it properly so it leaves the life spark. I enjoy doing that.

Alex: Out of all of your products which one are you most proud of and why?


Michell: Well, Pure Synergy. Pure Synergy because it was the original product. It has stayed essentially the same. Well, actually this year will be 30 yrs. It is based on a lot of research. Jack had a direct hand in it, with a lot of physicists, biochemists, even Dr. Jensen used it back in those days. This was before we had a name. We used to just call it "Greenie". Which is kind of our nickname. I have watched it bring so many people into life. I lived on it myself for 2 yrs. exclusively with carrot juice. I watched what it did to me and literally thousands of people. And it spawned the whole superfood movement.


All other superfoods, you know, that came afterwards, came after Pure Synergy. Some of them didn't know they were trying to copy us. They were copying somebody that was copying us. Very few people have spent 7 years researching doing what they did, that they did. And actually done it in a hardcore laboratory and had several years of clinical research of giving it to thousands of people to see the response and refining it till where you had it perfected. It had always been done organically, Kosher, and as I said we do it all ourselves. I mean I love our other products. Our Pure Radiance C. That's a magnificent product. Both because of what it offers people and environmentally, and ecologically. We went down to the rain forest and discovered this substance. We stopped the clear cutting and the cattle grazing that was happening in the native lands. We brought the first truly natural vitamin c that is able to be tested to have this much vitamin c. Most other vitamin C's when you test them, amla, and all those other things, they don't even have %1 of what their claim is because they don't know how to preserve those elements in it.
Alex: When testing your products, do you test them before or their finished form?


Mitchell: Well, we have to test them throughout the whole process. So yes. They're tested when we harvest, right after processing, and then they are tested prior to going into the packaging, and then they are tested afterwards. Every bottle of Pure Synergy literally goes through 200 tests. Minimum. To make sure if something doesn't meet my or our energetic principles or even normal analytical criteria, it goes into our compost. We have the world's most expensive compost.


I don't really eat eggs, but I give a lot scrapings to the neighbors here and those eggs are so amazing. You just have to be a weightlifter to crack them open. Oh, and their color, when they try to break the yolk, it won't hardly even break. It is just so rich in luteins and zoezanthams, omega oils and so forth.


Alex: What is your day and diet like?

Mitchell: My day usually begins somewhere between four and five in the morning. I have kids, daughter, 13 and son, 11. I usually go in, even though they're sleeping, I hang out with them a little bit. I will drink a rather large glass of Pure Synergy. I drink copious amounts of Synergy. It's still my life blood. I drink tablespoon, upon tablespoon.


Alex: Yea, me too.

Mitchell: (hahaha) Then I usually will meditate for a good hour. That's how I like to start my day. Depending on how time is, I like to do pretty invigorating breathing exercises, even pre or post meditating. Then I need to help get the kids ready for school and in between that I am usually trying to catch up on what my "in the world work" would be for that day.


Usually around 7-7:30am. I drop the kids off to whatever they'll be doing. Then I would make myself a breakfast drink which usually consists of some concoction on something I'm working on. A lot of exotic wild berries, bilberry's, and black berries, lingon berries, wild blue berries, and lots of wolf berries and black currants. A lot of our berries are the wild variety. They are really ancient heirloom, not the cultivated kind and have gone wild. They're very little berries. I will mix that with a variety of whatever is kinda happening for me. This morning I mixed in some roots of a plant called Yacon with that. That usually gets me going till lunchtime. Then I am on the computer or on the phone doing what I'm doing with you now.


I start to feel hungry at usually 11:30 or 12:00 cause I really haven't had that much substance till then. I will then eat a rather large vegetable salad. I'm a big salad eater. Here in the winter it get's pretty cold. There's not snow on the ground right now but we definitely live in snow ville here. I eat whatever vegetables I can get organic fresh, I used to of course sprout everything myself but my day is so full and busy that I hardly have time to sprout anymore. That's really the core of my diet, to tell you the truth. Depending on the time of the year, I can really get into avocados. I think a lot of us do.


Alex: Are you into nuts or seeds at all?

Mitchell: It depends for me. Sometimes I would soak some almonds and put them in my drink. I like pecans and...sure, I love nuts. I prefer seeds, they're easier on my metabolism. Whether it's flax seeds or sunflower seeds or sesame seeds. To me seeds are really amazing because they take all of this potentiality for future life and hold it in a potential life form in the tiniest little package and they have all the elements that are needed to replicate life. I am very enthralled with that and so I like seeds.


Alex: What about sea vegetables?

Mitchell: Yes. Again, because I take a lot of Pure Synergy, I get quite a bit of sea vegetables from that but most certainly I put soaked or whatever kind of sea vegetables along side my salad. Some days when it's really chilly out I would eat steamed vegetables. Very lightly. Really more to warm me up than anything else. I prefer the texture of raw foods than to cook things. I would eat wild grain sometimes.


What I have found is because I interact with people all over the world. I eat somethings that wouldn't necessarily be what I would choose if I lived with just myself and my family so that I can be respectful because food is a big element of other cultures. And it's very disrespectful to reject food that your host gives you.


When I go to the orient or the middle east, if I were to say no to some of these things that I would never eat on my own, to me it would be more of a violation. And so I go along with a lot of that because my kids are kids and I don't want them to feel alienated. I kinda am looser than I am when I am on my own, for sure. Like last night for supper, it was very simple. Salad and a little bit of steamed chard. I don't eat much.

Alex: What part of the day do you finish eating?

Mitchell: Not when I want. I would prefer much earlier but last night I didn't get home from what I was doing till 9:00 o'clock. I ate at like 9:15 which you know is later than I prefer and course I don't get to bed until midnight and then wake up at 4-5am. During that day I am responsible for all of the actions that the Synergy company does.

Alex: What would you tell a person who overeats on certain things like nut butters, dehydrated goodies, etc...?

Mitchell: There are several things I would say to that Alex. One is what I found with raw foods is that it was one of the most transformative dietary practices I ever committed too. I played around too, with macrobiotics, etc. For me, by in large, unquestionably raw foods was the most profound. And as with anything that can be semi-religious it can turn into a dogma. And for me if things become religious or dogmatic you loose the spirit in some ways. Just like most religions have. They maybe are founded on the truth but that truth becomes dogmatized and codified. You're no longer living in the spirit of it but by the law. I think it's ok to go through that phase as long as you go through that phase and come out of the other side to where the truth is more important than you believe, or what you hold precious and dear to yourself.
The real transformation is that raw food has the ability to support our consciousness and our bodies well being so we can transform, but if we become fixated in habits or even addictions or fear. Like if we eat this, it's very bad for you and you better eat this. That's just another form of entrapment for our consciousness and that sometimes people eat a lot of those raw foods or foods that make them feel more full and satisfied because they're really feeling unmet. What happens for many people is they get fixated on certain foods, generally that have more fats in them because they're feeling a cry from the body, it's not just their taste buds and satisfaction, that's a part of it. They're deficient in essential fats. They need to do these things in a very balanced way and if that's part of the purpose of why something like Vita-Synergy and Pure Synergy can be crucial for these people because many people who choose a dietary path that's pretty strong like raw foods or macrobiotics or something that they often end up a nutrient deficient because they don't eat enough variety and tend to go in certain directions only. And if they're not getting enough of the basic needs like protein, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, fats, those profiles.


No matter how good your diet is, if you're missing something, when your body goes to generate the next generation of DNA and RNA you are going to make a copy of your cellular structure that's insufficient. And that's when disease starts or the breakdown of the body starts. To help fill those voids which is prolifically happening in our country and around the world actually even in people who have very "pure" diets, many people don't radiate strength and healthiness, well being and endurance, and there is no reason for that. Other than the fact that generally that there is some nutrient deficiency happening. To make a whole food and a raw food concentrate often times will minimize or nullify those addictive patterns because their bodies are getting what they need, they're cells are getting what they need. Therefore, the craving in them that they are not able to control all of a sudden eases. That's a part of it.


Some of it is, just like anybody else eating "junk food" who's craving foods with high fat in them. It's not a lot different that a raw fooder craving and eating a whole 12 oz. canister of almond butter and thinking that it's sort of ok cause it's raw. It's because it's filling more of an emotional need as well as a physiological need.


The problem with cravings is that unless you are incredibly instinctive most cravings will not take you into the direction of balance. They end up taking you out of balance. You have to get to where you have cleared most of your patterns and habits then your instincts will guide you correctly. Most of us have these historical things and experiences that influence those cravings. We are also metabolically designed over tens and thousands of years and so when we're missing something the body will override it. The limbic brain will override our "more" developed brain. For most of those people I say they are lacking true nutritional profiles and the best way to begin to get that rather than taking synthetic vitamins or things like that, that the normal medical model will recommend is to take something like the Pure Synergy or the Vita-Synergy and our other products, so that those needs can be met.

Alex: What are you thoughts on raw olive oil and other cold pressed oils.

Mitchell: I consume copious amounts of raw olive oil. I get this amazing raw olive oil... I got really into olive oil when I lived in Israel. In Jerusalem, I used to go down to where they would press it fresh. In a mill that has been pressing it for 2 thousand years and I would get it fresh off the press so to speak and the same with tahini. I love raw olive oil. Yet, again, some of it is body type. I do well with oils but not everyone does. As far as essential fatty acid oils. This is a real challenge for raw fooders and vegans cause by large we really do not convert vegetable based omega 3 oils to the proper form to do what our brains need done to them to have these essential fatty acids in there. Whether it's hemp or flax seeds, many people lack the capacity to transform that sufficiently, to be sufficiently protected. I am not there yet, but I am working on how I could extract it from particular sea vegetables that actually has the proper form of omega 3 oils in it for vegetarians and vegans. We do need oils. Again, a lot of vegans and raw fooders tend to almost over dose on oil. They bathe stuff in salad dressings and they love dips...I can get carried away on avos like anybody...but I don't see anything overlay wrong with that especially if your metabolism works properly.

Alex: What about sea salt? Do you use it at all?

Mitchell: I have not used it for so long. I would sometimes use Celtic Sea Salt or different salts from around the world. I don't miss it. Once you ween yourself from it, in terms of my taste buds...what I find is that those things become addictive quickly and if you start using it again it takes awhile to get away from it. I've done that many times in my life with sweets. If I don't eat any kinds of sweets for months at a time I don't have any interest in it. Even "raw food pies" or something like that. If I say I'll take a bite. It tends to want to come back and then it's hard to break again. Having kids, it's a way for them to eat certain things. We don't use sugar or that kind of stuff but fruit sugars is still sugar.

Alex: What are some of the benefits of Healing Honey and how does it compare to other honey's on the market?

Mitchell: First, I just read in the news today. The same type of healing honey that our product is, is now being prescribed in hospitals for topical treatments for staff and antibiotic resistant infection.


What is most called "raw" honey out there is heated to 160 degrees, F. by the US policy. You can call your honey "raw" in America and still cook it. Every raw honey, except 1 that I heard of in the US is actually heated to 160 degrees.


When they say raw, it's sort of similar to many oil companies that say "cold pressed". That doesn't mean anything. It means below boiling. We have our hives in New Zealand and can not and will not heat our honey higher than the bees keep it in the hive which is about 96 degrees F. Bees do that automatically. They will keep it between 93 and 96 degrees by how they flap their wings. We never apply any heat. Our honey is TRULY RAW so that the enzymes are alive. Honey actually has benefit in it if it's not been heated because of the enzymes. That's a known scientific fact.


Secondly most honey can not get organic status because there are very few places in the world that are pure for that because of the range the bees travel. To be certified organic the bees can fly about 2 miles away from the hive...we require a 5 mile radius around our hive that has never had any human intervention there of any kind.


We have permission from the New Zealand government so it's all in national preserve. Manuka is the flower in the type of tree that the bees harvest from and it's actually the predecessor to tea tree. It's much more potent in an oil than tea tree. Only 2% of manuka honey has the activity factor that has been proven in tests to be effective against 45 different bacteria and viruses. Of that 2% that has the activity factor only 1% has it at a factor of 10 or higher. We say 10+ because most of ours is at 15 or 20. It all has to be at 10 because if it's not at ten it doesn't have the same scientific proof. Ours has been tested in about 30 clinical trials to be effective in external and internal infections for H. Pylori which is the primary bacteria cause of ulcers, it's resistant against staff, salmonella, and a whole host of different critters but not against acidophalis and things of that nature. Almost any honey has some effect on wounds because it will dehydrate the bacteria, because it's antibacterial. Ours is antibacterial and anti-microbial. Even if you were to heat ours, it will still have that effect because it's different in the enzymes. We have just perfected freeze drying our honey at cold temperatures at 90 degrees and turned it into a powder. That's very cool.

Alex: What are you going to use that in?

Mitchell: I don't know yet. Our whole lab is filled with 120 ingredients I created and haven't put out yet because I don't have time.

Alex: Are you working on any new products or projects?

Mitchell: Yes I am. Our recent project that we completed is not food related...Our entire facility is 100% wind powered. That's a pretty big undertaking because we have big equipment and that was a real goal of mine and to make sure that our footprint on whatever actions that we do, we do not put a strain on the world's ecological system.


In terms of product development, we'll be having most likely an enzyme product coming out that I have been working on many years. The most exciting one for me is actually a bone renewal product. We have worked on extracting certain minerals from various fruits and vegetables to do this. That one is 4 1/2 years in development now and we are 97% there. Most of these bone formulas are not very effective. Most of them are just calcium and magnesium which are needed but they are just ground up rocks. This will have all the various co-factors...and our Vita-Synergy that we have worked on many years will finally be certified organic.


I have a product for kids I'm working on, a wild berry product that I am working on lot's of good things I am working on. I love research. If you can see where I am sitting now, I have on my shelves probably 60-70 various fruits and vegetables from around the world and extracting the colors from.

Alex: That's a fun job.

Mitchell: Yes it is.

Alex: My last question is, what are your goals for the future.

Mitchell: I want to have a complete array of products to cover all the foundational wellness needs for people in the whole food organic form. But in a concentrated supplement form so that the fundamental nutrition needs and energetic needs are being totally met. Once I do that I will feel complete as a business man and probably turn the project over to others to sustain it and keep it going. I would really love to be able to teach again many of these principles that my mentor taught me so people can learn how to enter the states of consciousness for self healing or help other people to heal and how to draw other forms of nourishment than just physical forms and to assist other people who have projects that have humanitarian and contributing energies for the world needs and to help fund those both financially and with knowledge.

Alex: Sounds like a lot. Good luck!

Mitchell: (laughingly) And to watch my kids and for them to continue to surprise me.

Alex: Are you working on any pet products?

Mitchell: Well, many people feed the Pure Synergy to their pets. A lot of race horse people do. It's amazing to me. The Pure Radiance C and I haven't really thought of one for pets. Nobody asked me to do that.

Alex: Thank you very much Mitchell.

Mitchell: I hope that hit the spot.

Alex: Yes, you mentioned many things I wanted to know.

Mitchell: Thank you. I appreciate your interest.