“Our life will never be the same again!”

Markus and Caroline GappmaierBy: Caroline Gappmaier

I always thought we ate fairly healthy. Baking our own bread from grains I milled, eating only a little meat, and then basically no red meat, no drinking of soft drinks, etc. Of course, I did have a sweet tooth and liked cheese very much (you know, I’m Swiss, and those of you who have tasted our cheese and chocolate will understand!). Then, our family experienced an extended period of existential stress which brought me health-wise to a point where I hardly could eat anything anymore. I had suffered from severe rheumatism before, with chronic pain mainly in my shoulders, but with all the other joints suffering also (which meant never being without pain day and night). But now with this added stress, my skin had turned so yellowish that even strangers would address me about it. Around my eyes were deep, dark circles. I kept losing weight. I had random itches all over my body all the time. I started feeling as if my body could stop working at any given moment. My thighs had white marble lines on them and going to the toilet smelled like walking into some of those old folks’ rest rooms. I had to leave early for everything because hurrying was too much and got me out of breath. All the while I had no strength to deal with any kind of extra stress. I felt depressed constantly instead of being happy and easygoing, as would reflect my personality. I was always worried and feeling bad. It was miserable!

Realizing things could not go on like that much longer, I adjusted my diet. I had already let go of all refined sugar products. When I realized that cheese caused feelings of anxiety, I stopped eating that, too. Finally, I started eating only the things I digested well and made me feel physically good afterwards: fresh produce (fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds). For one year, I ate nothing else. Fruits in the morning (usually a fruit smoothie with some flax seeds, brown millet and pure honey in it) and a mixed salad of vegetables and lettuce with some seeds and nuts in the afternoon. Today I think this saved my life. As I got better, I started to reintroduce other foods again. A few years later, as my husband, Markus, also struggled with his health, we felt we should change to a whole food, plant-based diet. Our health improved slowly, but surely. I was able to go back to a more normal life style in general again, feeling less depressed and having more physical energy and no pain. Happiness came back and in the (early!) morning I started to be fully awake again. No more lead in the bones or short breath.

My body still is in the process of going backwards through the symptoms I had experienced on my way into sickness – which is said to be part of the normal process of real healing. So, I go through phases where a symptom gets worse again. But I feel that my body has much more light and energy than before, so I know things are going the right direction. During the past few years I read many books about health and nutrition, and we tried all kinds of whole food, plant-based nutrition styles, such as cooking without salt (recently we went back to using very little, but unrefined salt) and having 80% of our food being fruits and vegetables (this one we kept).

Some five months ago my husband, Markus, felt prompted to suggest we try a three-month period of eating unprocessed raw food only (with very little honey). So we did. At first, we mainly just ate fresh fruit, vegetables, and sprouts (including grains). But I missed having a good meal every once in a while. A salad is delicious, but having a good bread, soup, etc. is a great addition to it! Then we found out there are hundreds of delicious recipes for raw eating, even bread and WFPB pizza, which we embraced excitedly. I started to “bake” raw bread and patties out of germinated spelt (original wheat), nuts and seeds, to blend all kinds of soups, make bread spreads out of dried tomatoes and other things, to “bake” cookies in a dehydrator and much more (heating the food not more than 42°C to keep it raw and not destroy the healthy enzymes). After three months we felt no desire to go back to cooking. Raw whole food, plant-based meals just feel so alive – and make us feel so, too. The only thing we changed after the intensive three-month period was that, whenever we are invited, we eat cooked things we are served, with the exception of animal protein and sugar. We also eat some carefully low-temperature baked or cooked pre-soaked grains and legumes.

What has changed health-wise in this discovery and change process already? I can perform hard work from early morning till night without my body or mind feeling tired or hurting. (Even though I am 50 my boss called me “our whirlwind” lately!) I eat as much as I want and keep my ideal weight. My body is as flexible as in my youth again, and the two toes that had rolled in during my younger years are stretched out again. My hair is thicker and healthier than ever before. My nails have no more rills in either direction, no white spots and usually are of a nice, pink color without me doing anything about it. My feelings of depression are gone, my breathing is free, deep and much slower. After having been in chronic pain for years it is wonderful to usually not have any pain at all without taking any pills. My reactions became much better. My eyesight is improving. My breath and sweat do not smell any more, so that the usage of deodorant or soap is mostly unnecessary. No more constipation. My athlete’s foot is gone (I had tried for years to get rid of it before, with all known means, but to no avail …). I can run without getting out of breath pretty far, even though I’m not training. Now I have to learn to read my body in a new way, as being tired or sick does not feel the same way as before. I used to feel so tired I almost could not move any more. Now I feel fairly good even when I am quite tired or getting sick. I am eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father, who has guided us down this blessed path step by step on the basis of much fasting, praying, and studying. Our life will never be the same again.

Even though all of my health issues have gotten better with our whole food, plant-based diet, with our change to mainly raw eating one additional aspect has changed dramatically: I started to have new spiritual insights and an increased openness and awe for God and His creations, which seems to come from deep within every cell of my body and to open my mind and heart to new understandings of up to this point unknown dimensions. I feel a new connection with every living being around me, which has not been there before. This makes me deeply humble and grateful.

For some people it is hard when I speak about these aspects of the Word of Wisdom. They cannot imagine such blessings to be connected with it. But is this not a message of the experiences of Daniel in the Old Testament which may have been on President Benson’s mind when he taught:

What needs additional emphasis are the positive aspects—the need for vegetables, fruits, and grains, particularly wheat. In most cases, the closer these can be, when eaten, to their natural state— without overrefinement and processing—the healthier we will be (“In His Steps,” 1979).

Additionally, the Word of Wisdom has been “given for a principle … adapted to the capacity of the weak and weakest of all saints” (D&C 89: 3), while promising “all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments,” not only to receive “health in their navel and marrow to their bones” (D&C 89: 18) and that they “shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint” (D&C 89: 20), but also to find “wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;” (D&C 89: 19). So, there must be more blessings and understanding to be had! The Lord even promises us that He will bless us with many commandments (D&C 59: 4), guiding us line upon line and precept upon precept.

What originally was a great sacrifice has become a wonderful blessing I would not like to miss – even though I am not at the point yet where this mainly raw whole food, plant-based nutrition has become total routine. I still struggle with foods that go bad or taste so. And, sometimes, I still feel tempted to eat some foods from before, especially when experiencing certain smells triggering beloved memories (some other smells I had liked before have become rather unpleasant though in the meantime, such as the smell of some sausages, meats, grease, etc.). But when I focus on the feeling of my whole being instead of just on the perception of my nose and the connected memories, I usually realize very fast, that I do not want to eat our former food any more. Because our mainly raw WFPB food tastes very good (e.g., all these organic, ripe fruits, vegetables and grains are just delicious!) and makes me feel great, while eating it and afterwards.

Caroline Gappmaier, 50, lives in the Province of Bern, Switzerland. She was born into a large LDS family in Switzerland and got married when she was barely 19. 32 years later, she is the valued wife of Markus Gappmaier (from Austria), the grateful mother of 4 (who had all arrived before she turned 25), and the excited grandmother of 7. She studied Elementary Music Education in Austria and Marriage, Family and Human Development at BYU (during the time when her husband, Markus, worked there as Visiting Professor of Information Systems). After her graduation, she earned the Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) designation, which qualification has been the basis of much of her professional work with LDS Family Services since returning to Europe in 2004. She loves working with friends at the Swiss temple and strengthening couples and families through education and holistic coaching. In July 2016 she will be on stage, together with her husband and guest-speaker Jane Birch, for a one-day conference on Word of Wisdom-based nutrition at the location of the beautiful Swiss Landshut Water Castle.

Note about upcoming Word of Wisdom Conference in Switzerland, July 9, 2016!

Markus and Caroline Gappmaier, along with Jane Birch, will be offering a special one day Word of Wisdom Conference in July of this year. We hope everyone who is close enough to join us will seriously consider it!

Please check out this document for more information and add your name to the email list if you want to be kept informed of this conference and other Word of Wisdom happenings in Europe:  2016 European Word of Wisdom Conference.

Comments

  1. I have LOVED getting to know the Markus and Caroline over the last couple of years. You’ll not find a more gracious, kind-hearted couple. I’m looking forward to spending time with them and many others at the European Word of Wisdom Conference this July. If you can make it, I hope you’ll plan to join us! For more info: 2016 European Word of Wisdom Conference

  2. Now a Swiss vacation would be really fun! Sigh….

    Thanks for your interesting testimony of plant foods. So many of us who have found this path arrived because of similar reasons of ill health. It must have been especially difficult to give up chocolate. (I still dream of it sometimes.)

    • For special occasions you may want to try some of the delicious raw recipes for chocolaty treats (from chocolate to mousse etc.) that can be found on the internet. A little of this chocolate (without refined sugar, but with some raw sweetener) every now and then feels somewhat like chocolate paradise to me 😉

  3. Jane,

    I appreciate the articles from those who have turned their life around, following the Word of Wisdom. I live in the southwest part of the country, specifically in southern New Mexico. Are there any plans in the making to hold conference in this part of the world? Keep up the good work, and fight the good fight. Look forward to hearing from you.

  4. Thank you Caroline, especially for your testimony on the blessings you experience going to a raw diet. I have been doing WFPB for over a year and thought I would try three months going raw from my garden this summer. Those who haven’t tried our version of the Word of Wisdom have a hard time believing the blessings I have shared regarding it, believing only what they can see, which is plenty! As I read your account I found myself in their shoes and monitored my own response as I read your words. I wondered if there really would be a greater spiritual blessing from WFPB to raw and then realized that I will have to act in order to know for myself.

    Your testimony is timely for me. Again, thank you!

    Jan

    • Thank you, Jan, for your very appreciated comment. Your decision on how to react to our testimony impresses us, and we believe it to be the best way to find out how a raw WFPB diet may bless your life.

      All the best,
      Caroline and Markus

  5. What can we do about the rubbish served at church gatherings? I’m sometimes appalled that we serve such unhealthy food to the folks we love most!
    I would suggest that every great Relief Society President especially at the stake level make it her goal to encourage and serve only foods that are healthy.

  6. Thank you for sharing with all of us out here the success you are both having in eating the way the Lord advises us to eat in the Word of Wisdom, Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants verses ten through twenty one.

    I particularly appreciated reading this in what you submitted to my dear daughter Jane which was published on the very day I turned eighty four years of age:

    “Even though all of my health issues have gotten better with our whole food, plant-based diet, with our change to mainly raw eating one additional aspect has changed dramatically: I started to have new spiritual insights and an increased openness and awe for God and His creations, which seems to come from deep within every cell of my body and to open my mind and heart to new understandings of up to this point unknown dimensions. I feel a new connection with every living being around me, which has not been there before. This makes me deeply humble and grateful.”

    After my first mission to Finland when I was in my mid twenties, I was able to travel through much of Europe by hitchhiking! I traveled through Switzerland (Schweiss) and actually was able to be at the temple in Bern as they were in perhaps the middle or a little beyond the middle of its construction! A very kind and helpful worker walked me through the construction which was under progress. Sadly, I’ve never been back to that very beautiful temple again. During my second mission to Finland, my mission companion, my wife, Melva and I heard members of the Church in Finland about their experiences years before when they traveled to your country.

    Thank you for sharing with all of us out here how you have been blessed by eating the way the Lord has taught us to eat in that Section of the D&C! May the Lord continue to bless both of you!

    • Dear Brother Birch,

      Thank you very much for your very valued comment.

      With your background, you may be the ideal participant of our Swiss WoW Conference in July of this year. 🙂 There may be many reasons this might be attractive for you, too:
      A) Your first contact with our Swiss temple more than 60 years ago (it is just 20 minutes driving distance from our conference location and we will surely attend the temple on one of the days prior to our conference);
      B) Your missionary service in Finland, as you may know my, Caroline’s, parents because of it (their name is Daetwyler; they served missions in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the years “surrounding” 2000; and visited Finland on multiple occasions back then; and, btw, they served their third and fourth missions in the Swiss Temple afterwards – so they would be ideal company in the temple as well :-);
      C) There will be a MoTab concert in Switzerland (Zurich) just three days prior to our WoW conference here; this special concert is, of course, main part of the official cultural component of our conference program ;-);
      D) Your daughter, Jane, will be our main speaker (= main reason for coming, of course!!)..

      At any rate, it would be great to be able to welcome you here, shoiuld you be able to join us at our Swiss conference we are happy to be able to do with your dear daughter, Jane,

      Thanks again!

      Best greetings and the choicest blessings,
      Caroline and Markus

  7. Great article by Caroline and her and her husbands experience with a WFPB diet. I am continually working on this. So grateful for others insights and testimonies thank you Sherri L. Albrecht

  8. Thanks so much for this description of your food journey. My experience is similar. I was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) in England and suffered for about twelve years with severe fatigue and the stressful upset of all my body systems. I got better over time, as fast as I was able to change my diet. I am happy for you both!

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