A fashion designer from Ukraine preaches a new religion in Russia - sun-gazing. Followers first switch from normal food to juices, and then generally "feed" on solar energy. Some - on the verge of life and death - end up in hospitals. There are many who want to become a demigod by defeating food addiction - they are even willing to pay 10 thousand rubles for one seminar (perhaps hoping to save money on food later).
Leave the kefir - eat ether
Look at the main sun-expert of our country - this is Olga Podorovskaya, 46 years old. Can you believe she's not eating? Yes, yes, I haven't eaten at all for six years …
These are the most striking excerpts from a 47-minute Skype interview with Olga Podorovskaya that we recorded.
The meaning of Pranoology, as Olga has already made it clear, is the enlightenment of the spirit and the purification of the body.
- Until the age of 40, I had 34 diagnoses - these are "pancreatitis" (inflammation of the pancreas. - Approx. Life), "cholecystitis" (inflammation of the gallbladder. - Approx. Life), "arthritis" (inflammation of the joints. - Approx. Life), "Arthrosis" (a chronic disease of the joints. - Approx. Life), etc., - she says. - Now I am absolutely healthy. This is confirmed by the regular examinations that I undergo.
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In 2014, the fashion designer established Research Institute of Pranosia LLC. According to the SPARK-Interfax database, financial indicators are extremely modest. In 2015, the company's revenue amounted to only 272 thousand rubles, net profit - 224 thousand rubles.
But the prices for webinars (again via Skype) show that in reality the business is probably more successful than the official statistics.
“A group webinar costs 10 thousand rubles per participant,” Olga Podorovskaya said. - At least 10 people participate. The webinar lasts five hours.
Olga Podorovskaya's work schedule was drawn up until February. Seminars and webinars - with the titles "Technology of Enlightenment", "Pranic Breathing", "Pranic Eating Technique" (moreover, the entry has already been closed, because the groups are recruited). And the potential audience can be assessed by profile groups in the VKontakte social network. The group "Raw food diet - Pranay food - Great transition" - 11.5 thousand participants, the group "Bretarians" (another name for sun eaters, from the English breath "breath") - more than a thousand participants.
From dawn to hospital
But this is a sun eater with experience in the hospital. He was photographed by Perm doctors.
They were so impressed that they dedicated the scientific work "Fruitarianism as the Cause of Severe Nutritional Deficiency" to him (published in 2014 in the journal "Diary of the Kazan Medical School").
Doctors call their hero "sick B." Let's say his name is Boris. The work tells how Boris came to such a life. "It is known from the anamnesis that the patient has been a member of the Russian Fruitarian Society for the past three years (the ideology of the society is to switch to a vegetarian lifestyle - vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, with a gradual rejection of food, replacing it with solar energy)", - doctors write.
With a height of 170 cm, Boris weighed only 30 kg. It was even difficult for him to walk, with any movement his joints ached. But he continued to courageously refuse food - two months before he went to the hospital, he stopped eating nuts (the only protein food that he had allowed himself before). "There was multiple organ failure (severe weakness, according to the patient -" lack of strength ", inability to self-service and movement)", - write the doctors. As a result, Boris was hospitalized "on an emergency basis, in serious condition."
Boris "broke" almost everything in his body. His diagnosis takes a whole paragraph: "Chronic pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas. - Approx. Life) against the background of protein deficiency …, moderate severity. Cachexia (extreme exhaustion of the body. - Approx. Life) alimentary genesis. Nutritional deficiency: chronic anemia (changes in blood composition. - Life's note) of moderate severity of mixed genesis (protein-, iron-, B12-, PP-deficient); thrombocytopenia with cutaneous hemorrhagic syndrome (blood vessels are destroyed, blood accumulates under the skin, so the patient becomes covered with red spots. - Approx. Life), associated with hypovitaminosis (vitamins K, C); hypoproteinemia with hydrothorax (accumulation of fluid in the membrane of the lungs. - Approx. Life). Secondary immunodeficiency ".
At the hospital, Boris was given IVs, gradually he was taught anew to normal food - and by the time he was discharged he gained up to 40 kg. “The patient has become capable of self-care,” the doctors concluded. By the way, Boris, among other things, in the list of diagnoses - "mixed personality disorder" (put after consultation with a psychiatrist). Which, of course, explains a lot.
I locked myself in an apartment and didn't eat for seven days
Sergey Danilov from the Tula region is a sales manager for electrical goods. In the past - a sun eater. For him, the experiment on the transition to solar energy did not end as sadly as for Boris.
“Once I came across a book by Jasmukhin (an Australian supporter of Pranoology. - Life's note), where she writes about Pranoology,” says Sergey. - And she says that you can develop it in yourself. Everyone has it, we just don't use it. I am an experimenter, I was curious, I decided to try it. Do not eat - it makes our life so much easier!
Then Sergei calmly, as if talking about the weather outside the window, begins to say absolutely incredible things:
- I took a vacation, rented an apartment, closed in it for a week. I followed all the recommendations - did not eat or drink for seven days. It's not as hard as you might think. The first day - nonsense, the second day - thirsty, besides, it was hot, the temperature in the apartment was 30 degrees. Starting from the third day - a minimum of movements. The last days have been hard.
It was not the pangs of hunger that forced Sergey to end the path of the prano-eater. He just noticed that he was losing weight. This he had not expected. According to the theory, if his body should have changed, then only for the better, but - unexpectedly! - he became more and more like a concentration camp prisoner.
- The weight began to fall, and I thought that I did not succeed, that it was simply not given to me, - said Sergey.
And a couple of years later he found out about Olga Podorovskaya. And I went with her to India - to try to switch to solar energy again. There he was again disappointed. He lost weight again!
- I realized that Pranoology is really a gift and opens up to certain people, - says Sergey.
However, Sergei concluded, he does not have this gift, just as Podorovskaya does not.
- Olga herself eats, - says Sergey. - I saw her before the experiment (in India. - Approx. Life), when it was possible to eat, she ate, like everyone else. She may be a vegetarian. I saw that she ate dalma, all the food that was given there.
By the way, sometimes Brittarians really die (voluntarily!) From starvation. It was reported that Australian resident Verity Lynn was found dead in the mountains - judging by her diary, she planned to cleanse her body and soul by refusing food and water.
When healthy lifestyle goes insane
The path to "enlightenment" looks like this.
What step do you think is the line between a healthy lifestyle and insanity? We asked this question to nutritionist Andrey Bobrovsky. He recalled that humans are not actually plants.
“Scientists have long proven that in order to convert solar energy into energy for life, a process called photosynthesis is needed,” he said. - It is in plants, but it is completely absent in humans. Therefore, a person will not be able to feed on such energy.
It turned out that the nutritionist knows about the existence of the Pranoed movement and considers them to be crazy or deceivers.
“As for people who promote the ideas of Pranoology, I divide them into three roughly equal groups,” he said. - The first are mentally unhealthy people (they need to be Napoleon, or an alien). The second are people who make a commercial project out of it. Still others - who simply attract the attention of others with ideas like “I haven't eaten for six years” (not necessarily because of money).
The nutritionist also recalled that a person without water can last about five days, without food - a maximum of 30.
- You need to understand that without water, the process of dehydration of the body will begin - this is drying of mucous membranes, high fever and clinical death, - says Andrei Bobrovsky. - Without food, the body will be left without nutrients, severe pains may begin, and the person will also die. Six years without food is unrealistic.
As for vegetarian and raw food diets, there is a great risk that the body will also lack nutrients (protein, for example), but there are benefits.
- As for the raw food diet, this is one plus: fresh vegetables and fruits are full of vitamins and nutrients that are necessary for life in the modern world, - said the nutritionist. - But in the process of evolution, the human body is still accustomed to processed food, it assimilates it better. Therefore, it is better to just add more vegetables and fruits to your diet and not experiment.
Perm physicians who described the fruitarian write in the same work: “We are deeply convinced that each of the unconventional nutritional systems can be useful only for certain functional disorders of the state of health and with its short-term use”. According to them, "the whole history of mankind has proved the indispensability and the greatest acceptability of the type of food that most earthlings use: a mixed type of food that meets the basic rules of the modern concept of rational nutrition."
Merchants also profit from sun-eaters
As soon as people create a certain idea for themselves, the business responds to it. There are now many online and offline health food stores to be found. Some of the audience are people who watch their HEALTH, and some are emaciated sun-eaters (who have not yet fully switched to the sun), fruitorians and other food perverts.
In general, eating food from eco-shops is more expensive than, say, from Pyaterochka. For example, 100 g of Beetroot flaxseed bread can be bought for 210 rubles. Breads under a more massive brand (from whole grains, also healthy) can be bought in regular stores for 60 rubles (100 g), that is, 3.5 times cheaper. Green buckwheat (it does not undergo heat treatment, unlike the usual one) in stores for eco-food fans costs 90 rubles (for 500 g). This is about twice as expensive as regular buckwheat.
- The competition is fierce! - says Nadezhda Semyonova-Bryullova, the founder of the Internet-shop of real food. Cabbage and beetroot crispbreads, organic mixtures from plants, soy sausage - it's more expensive to eat, but there is a demand.
“Our store started working on September 1, 2009,” says Nadezhda Semyonova-Bryullova. - And, above all, the desire to engage in this particular business arose because of my own lifestyle. I myself have been fond of raw food for about two years, in general I lead a healthy lifestyle. In 2009, this was especially important for my child's health. Then we were the first and only one of our kind in this market.
Now, according to Nadezhda, there are several hundred shops for raw foodists in Russia.
“The boom came in the spring of 2011, when 30 stores appeared almost simultaneously,” she says. - It is very difficult to fight for a place in the sun, only the strongest remain. But we focus on honest partners - this is also why we are engaged in a franchise. The profitability of my business at the moment is about 7%.
Clients are mostly women 25-45 years old.
- In my opinion, focusing exclusively on raw foodists would not be entirely correct and not very profitable for business, - adds Nadezhda. - We primarily focus on those who are interested in proper nutrition. And here the buyer's income is not so important, contrary to the classical marketing model - we rely more on a person's education. That is, a person with the right attitude towards life, with a normal level of education and interest in personal effectiveness understands that it is easier for him to pay a little more for quality food now than to spend money on doctors later because of preservatives and other chemicals in products that are filled markets.
What business has not come up with for raw foodists, vegans and representatives of other modern food religions. "At their home micro-farm … everyone can effortlessly sprout any grain and grow greens or sprouts for witgrass," says an ad on one of the online stores (let sprouts remain a cryptic word from a prayer in a foreign language - if it is for you still a stranger). In a transparent plastic container (this is the "farm") there is a "fog generator", two LED lamps of a special spectrum for fast seed growth, a timer. It all costs 10.9 thousand rubles.
For 20.9 thousand rubles, you can buy an oil press for your kitchen. “We use vegetable oil every day in the cooking process,” says the product description in the online store. - More often than not, we don't even think about the purity and quality of this product. Of course, oil prepared on an industrial scale and for general consumption cannot be as high quality as carefully squeezed at home."
By the way, divine punishment awaits the apostates of the faith. It is known that if you stick to a strict diet or starve and then suddenly "break down" and eat a lot of something unusual, then you risk falling into a food coma and dying. Recently, this happened to a Kuzbass homeless man who lived from hand to mouth for a long time, and then stole money and made himself a feast. So in the culinary religion, as in any other, "according to your faith, let it be unto you."
Alexandra Rykova