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My first preparations and experiences

Migrated topic.
Sote

Sote

Rising Star
So, I decided to start a thread for my experiences. Perhaps they will one day be of use to other beginners like myself. Alas, this first report is quite boring, as I've only begun testing things out, carefully, and nothing really happened. As of this posting, I'm not at a stage where I feel like working with extracting and trying pure DMT; my focus is currently on Ayahuasca.

The items I had ready:

* Roughly ground B. Caapi (Cielo) from Basement Shaman
* P. Viridis from Maya Ethnobotanicals
* Stainless steel spaghetti pot
* Distilled vinegar labeled as "24% pure"
* Cotton T-shirt for filtering
* Glass jars
* Incense

I bought the ingredients from two different sellers in case I would be able to tell a difference in quality after ordering more in the future. I decided to make a one-dose Caapi-only brew just to get acquainted with the process and the resulting tea. Since I'm a small person (57 kg), I went with a very low dose of about 20-25 grams. Using the items above, I followed the instructions in the "All About Aya <3" thread.


Saturday (making the brew)

Started brewing the for the first wash at around 14:00, so I was done with all three washes at around 23:00. I began by burning some incense for the occasion. During the brewing I kept a positive mind-set, and attempted to converse orally and mentally with whatever positive spirits there may be out there unbeknownst to me (I'm an agnostic), to whom I expressed gratitude and asked to be assisted by. When not fully engaged in this, I spent some time drawing, and also did some very light computer work (such as backing up data) - in the same room as the ongoing brewing.

Finally, all three washes were combined and I reduced them to somewhere in-between 30 and 50 ml, I think. Had a sterilized jar ready to pour the resulting liquid into (I made sure to sterilize all jars by cooking them in water for 10 minutes prior to their use as temporary holders of the three washes, and for storing the finished tea.). I then waited for it to cool down to room temperature before putting it in the fridge, where it would it sit for about 18 hours and 30 minutes, before I took it out the next day.



Sunday (trying the brew)

11:00
Woke up this late. Drank ~4 dl of water.

12:00
Took 10,000 IU of Vitamin D with a spoon of coconut oil.

12:30
Ate ten kiwis followed closely by four bananas. A total of ~820 calories.

13:00 - 17:00
Drank ~8 dl of water over this time.

17:30
Took out Caapi brew from fridge.

17:50
Burned some incense. Invited whatever positive spirits that may exist unbeknownst to me. Expressed gratitude. Asked for guidance.

18:00
Drank the brew. Tart taste, but not as awful as I've read it might taste. Engaged in some relaxation and then some light meditation, while musing over life issues with a neutral/positive mindset.

18:30 - 18:50
Very vague cricket-like noise seems to come from inside my head now and then during this period of time.

19:00
Having read that food might expedite/help trigger a trip, I ate ten more kiwis, followed by two more bananas. ~620 calories.

22:00
As nothing had happen so far, other than that cricket-y noise, I accepted that the brew was probably a dud for me. Sat down to write this report. Perhaps I will dream something odd tonight though. If that's the case, I'll report back on that.



Does anyone have an idea of what went "wrong"? I'm all new to this so I'm thinking that just about anything might have gone wrong. Perhaps I didn't acidify the water correctly (1-1.5 tablespoons of that vinegar per liter), perhaps I let the water boil down too low when the Caapi was exposed / didn't cook with enough water in the pot, perhaps it was something I ate/took that day that got in the way (drank too much water too close to drinking the Caapi tea? Maybe the Vitamin D supplement, although such doses are being recommended more and more for people in northern countries like mine? I've read that fruit is supposed to be fine though, considering MAOIs and whatnot), perhaps the Caapi didn't store well, and so on, and so on. Or, perhaps the dose was simply too low - But I reckon that since I'm a small guy and pretty much all new to any kind of drug/"drug", and perhaps thus a bit more sensitive to the sudden introduction of one, a small dose should still have done something for me. I just hope it wasn't that the Caapi I worked with was of "low quality".

Any suggestions on where to go from here? If I can ascertain that I'm not doing something wrong during the making of the brew, I think I might want to go with 100 grams next time, or make multiple doses with more Caapi (though I don't have many jars, nor very big ones). Or, perhaps try some P. Viridis (which could also be prepared, alone, following the same instructions in the "All About Aya <3" thread, I suppose?) to try to get a feel for that one. Might shorter cooking times work well, if one is cooking just one of the constituents for Aya, to be used on its own, or is it always best to go for the full nine hours? I've read reports were shorter cook times worked just fine, although those guys usually had Viridis or something else as well.

Well, this was a boring report. ^^ Hopefully I will have something more interesting next time.

Very grateful for any input!
 
Thanks, Ya. :)

At some point in the future, I'll engage in another period of Aya|DMT research / contemplation / brewing again (I'm putting off a DMT extraction to I-don't-know-when).

With the material I worked with / the work I did, I had a couple more very similar experiences with Caapi combined with Viridis. The main difference when I included Viridis was, about 15-20 minutes following the cricket-y noise, a pulsing / resonating / escalating sound in my head. If one were to interpret it cinematically, it sounded like the build-up to the appearance of something in a movie (a horror movie? I hope not!) It lasted for some minutes and then faded out. That, and a bit puking - but that might've been mostly my fault because I ate a little. Haven't puked much at all in my life, but I didn't find it too uncomfortable. The taste of my separate Viridis tea, however, was almost unbearable.

After browsing the Ayahuasca forums, I'm not sure I should call them "duds", but definitely no mind-blowing experience so far. Interesting stuff for me though (especially since I've never really experienced mind-altering substances of any kind, having barely even tried alcohol, cigarettes or marijuana - I guess chocolate and sugar would be the only things :p)

I'm currently residing in a place where I might be able to get ahold of fresher material, so I'll see about that - but I don't want to rush anything.
 
Ah, yes, I should've mentioned that. The previously described experience was with a ~60:~60 brew, cooking the materials separately on two consecutive days (9 hours for each, excluding final reduction time, which was pretty long since I set the stove to a very low temp). I drank the Chacruna ~20 minutes after the Caapi.

About over-cooking and over-boiling, I was concerned about that. I wish I could've set my stove to a setting in-between the two I shifted back and forth on at times. Safer to err on the side of too little heat and too short a boiling time, you think? Also, maybe a t-shirt is a pretty bad filter?

Is there any scientific explanation of what may be beneficial with the purge? I've read some spiritual interpretations of it, and while I'm open to that, it would be interesting to know what substances the body is expelling (save from regular contants in your stomach) and what triggers it and how.

I'm currently in Costa Rica. I might try to find a vendor around here. Searching online in English doesn't yield that much info (except for on a few retreats). I could also try to forage, but so far as I know that might be dangerous if Caapi/Viridis is hard to tell from other plant matter, and moreso if you have to venture deep into jungles to find anything like it (considering predators and whatnot).
 
3maester said:
Costa Rica sounds awesome. You must be enjoying those Coqui Frogs? Probably a little too rough to try to forage. Maybe just look for an online vender that ships internationally? Maybe some vendors in Peru or Brazil that can ship to Costa Rica.

Good Luck
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The Coqui frogs, the mosquitos, the biting ants, the scorpions, the rat living in the walls of my place and trying to eat my fruit, etc. - I enjoy it all! ^^ (Hopefully no significantly detrimental parasites so far.)

Hm, do you (or anyone else) know of reputable vendors in Peru / Brazil? I've mostly seen Bouncing Bear Botanicals, Maya Ethnobotanicals, Basement Shaman, and a few other, non-South-American vendors being recommended.
 
(Just dropping in to say hello to Sote.)

Hey Sote!

keep trying with Aya, it works if you can get it right. Its more challenging to get it just right though.
 
Thanks, Scrappy. I wonder if I happen to know you from another forum or if you're just another friendly forumer? :)

And, because of a post at another forum re: my experience reports, I'll note that, no, I do not obsessively measure my intake of calories, nutrients, etc. every day, and that yes, I feel well on a diet consisting of a lot of fruit, but I don't exclusively eat kiwis ^^ Really, I just happened to have tried of the CRON-o-meter software the day of the session, and before I wrote my report, I got the idea to log my food intake there.
 
Thought I'd copy-paste the reports I've posted over at the ayahuasca forum, on the two experiences I've had in the last couple of months.

Sote said:
(NOTE: The times are not to be trusted, but don't matter all that much anyway. The only thing I had to give myself a sense of the time was the 90-min incense stick, and I only payed any attention to it during the first 20-30 minutes or so. I'm sure the chronology is right. And as I wrote in my previous post, the experience does fade like a dream for me, and remembering dreams isn't my forte.)

T+ 0:00 - 60:50 gram sweetened Caapi:Viridis brew drunk in a few gulps, in a secluded area, in the outdoors.

T+ 0:05 - A feeling starts building up in the stomach. A bit of warmth. Not uncomfortable.

T+ 0:15 - My body feels a buzz of stimulation throughout, and soon, it is distinctly focused on my feet and lower legs. From here on, this feeling moves slowly towards my head. With it progresses an oddly pleasant, slight, fuzzy feeling of nausea. (NOTE: As this was happening I was speculating that maybe what I was feeling was negative spiritual elements being drawn from my body, as per some metaphysical interpretations of the purge, which I was then fairly certain that this buzz was building up to.)

T+ 0:30 - I begin to laugh for no apparent reason, and I go along with it. This is accompanied by a feeling of happiness. For some time onwards, it feels as if I'm being puppeteered so as to smile, and I catch myself a few times with my mouth corners having been pulled up without me having noticed it happening. Around this point and for some time onwards, I begin having sighs of relief, and I hum a bit to myself - the experience is relaxing. (NOTE: Around this point, or not long after, my heart beats slightly faster than normal for a short period of time, perhaps for 15 seconds, at most.)

T+ 0:35 - I begin noticing closed-eye visuals, that are also faintly visible with open eyes. The feeling of happiness is inter-mixed with curiosity. The visuals are of a geometric, organic sort, with mixed patterns. (NOTE: When writing this account down, what I saw has long since faded from my memory, and only the thoughts, feelings, and "conclusions" derived from the visuals remain somewhat fixed. The same goes for sound. I'm fairly certain there were some sci-fi/fantasy-ish sound effects accompanying certain periods or bodily movements of mine, but I can't remember enough about them in order to give a clear description.)

T+ 0:40 - The fuzzy nausea reaches my mouth, which waters up. I feel that it's time to get up on my feet so as to be able to puke with ease, and I do so without trouble, releasing a small quantity of watery goo. I then look upwards, through the foliage and into the dark blue sky. I laugh out loud, and my laughter has a slightly megalomaniacal, but not ill-intentioned, touch to it. Then, for a while, I stand there with my mouth open, and with some kind of dumb grin on my face.

T+ 0:45 - I lie down again, and close my eyes. The visuals grow stronger. My curiosity escalates to wonder. Breathing, the flow of air, feels invigorating and "expanding", and I breathe deeply whenever I feel the experience seems to be moving to a more neutral, or uncertain direction, away from the clearly positive (NOTE: To be fair, even the uncertain and neutral aspects of the experience were of an interesting nature. Also, I believe the sound of me breathing was "enhanced" ).

T+ 1:30 - To make noises as if I am speaking in tongues seems like a fitting thing to do, and so I do it in a somewhat melodious manner (NOTE: To clarify, this was done voluntarily). I do not recall what the effect was, but I think that, like with breathing, this was a way for me to regulate the experience. I gesticulate calmly with my hands and feel my body and legs. When reaching forward, down my legs, this occurs with an odd, rushing sensation, and then some kind of fatigue or inclination to lie down pulls me back.

T+ 2:00 - Rolling my head about on the earthy ledge upon which it is resting produces a sense of traveling in or directing the experience. It's like the experience "falls" in a direction, and I follow along with it. With open eyes, I believe I can see my hands leaving traces of themselves in the air. I make an attempt at standing up, but again, I only come as far as grabbing onto my legs before deciding to let go and fall back to my resting position, and back into the closed-eye experience. (NOTE: This is a move I repeated with the same result several times during the experience.)

T+ 2:30 - When putting my hands to my face, my face and/or fingers feel/s freaky when compared to normal. It's as if perhaps my face has been rearranged a bit. (NOTE: I think it might've felt as if it had become smaller, and perhaps had changed in some other way. Also, I felt my face several times during the journey, and at some later point, it would feel as if my fingers sort "bent into" my face, which felt as if it "yielded", mechanically, to this action. Nothing painful or scary, just this odd "connection" going on.)

(NOTE: I think there's a bit of a gap here, during which I don't know what happened, and, so, maybe the experiences described next should really be shifted forward an 30-60 minutes in time.)

T+ 3:00 - I "feel" existence itself accelerating towards a technological and/or spiritual Singularity. (NOTE: This part of the experience, or this interpretation of it, was likely influenced by discussions I had had with transhumanist philosophers some days prior to this Ayahuasca session.) During this process, I begin to think that maybe Ayahuasca has tricked me, that I was lured in the wrong way, that drinking the brew was a mistake (NOTE: I did not experience fear. Perhaps a small amount of anxiety, but mostly some form of confusion). Soon, however, my perspective on the situation changes: I begin to think that maybe I am the universe/existence experiencing itself through the narrative of one person, and that it was *meant* to end this way. I imagine that everything is coming together and becoming one, but at the same time, I also come into a state of solipsistic thought, like I'm the point at which everything is coming together, and so I am the only being that's really... being. Leading up to this state, I hear/speak/think the same kind of fancy talk that various spiritual teachers say or that one finds written in spiritual texts. I can't recall the specific lines, but I'm fairly certain that some famous supernatural and/or metaphysical notions were brought up. (NOTE: This is probably the worst described portion of the experience, but enough time has now passed for it to be pretty much impossible for me to recall it any differently than what I've already written here.)

T+ 3:05 - (NOTE: I can't quite recall what it was that happened here. I just have this annoying feeling that I forgot something important or at least something that was distinct from the rest of the experience. It was some kind of a "climax" to the passage above...)

T+ 3:20 - I have been subsumed into some abstract state of consciousness. This is a really poor analogy to the visuals and the feelings accompanying them, but I see the world (or rather, "feel" the world - I didn't actually see the earth, the universe or something like that) assuming different configurations, kind of like a Rubik's cube being worked in a random manner, shifting between many different states. At the same time, it's also as if it's my own way of thinking that's being transformed several times over.

T+ 3:40 - It feels as if something has ended, perhaps, more specifically, as if my regular state of consciousness has ended, and that I will perhaps not return to it again. It feels like I'm kind of stuck there, in this other state, and I wonder if I might want to remain there. The state is not particularly pleasant, but certainly not unpleasant.

T+ 4:00 - Mosquitoes and drizzling rain reminds me of the real world. I sense that there won't be much more to the experience from now on, and I start to think that maybe it'd be a good idea to see if I can get up on my feet. Reaching forward a few times, attempting to get up from the ground, only has me falling back again out of fatigue or some kind of apathy. (NOTE: At this point it would've been nice to have had a sitter tell me, "everything's fine, you're going to come back soon, I can help you back"... but also, I believe a cozier, indoors setting would've made me feel more at ease with being "stuck".)

T+ 4:10 - The bugs are beginning to bug me slightly, the rain drops feel bleak and cold. I decide that I cannot stay in this state any longer, that it's no longer doing me any good this time, and I make a stronger effort than previously to force myself back to reality: I plunge myself to my feet, jump and shake about a bit in order to attempt to re-activate proper motor control. Disoriented in the darkness, I charge off in a random direction just so I can find a path or a road, from which I can find my way back to my entry point, and from there find my bike. All things considered, I fumble about with relative ease. (NOTE: Likely, my success at getting up and away was dependent upon the fact that the effects of the Ayahuasca were wearing off; I did not notice any effects at all after coming back onto a road. Of course, I didn't close my eyes to see if there still were any closed-eye visuals, but I didn't have any more open-eye visuals, unless they were really faint at that point.)

Now, I think an hour might be missing from this account of the session. Perhaps some of the passages described went on for longer than it felt like, or than the times I've been guesstimating. I do not remember what the time was when I had gotten back home, but I do think the experience lasted about five hours. I think it kicked in around 19:00, and I think I was back home in the early following morning.

Any comments would be appreciated! Also, I could ask all kinds of questions, but, for now, I'm going to settle for a simple one: is it common for people to begin to laugh soon after having imbibed Ayahuasca (or during some other point of the trip)? That's not something I expected, anyway.
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Also, I'm quite sure it/I told me that I "could be a smorgasbord".

Sote said:
[DISCLAIMER: I'm not a very spiritual person, but I do ponder concepts of spirituality, often because of various creative works that I may or may not write or otherwise develop. Considering that, I'm not particularly surprised by the experiences I've had so far. My reductionistic idea of what psychedelics do is that they activate the more visual, more dynamic, more imaginative, less linear right hemisphere much more than is normally done. Apparently the left hemisphere is most often the dominant one, meditation being one thing that seems to balance the activity over the two hemispheres, and psychedelics perhaps kicking the right one into overdrive. What I've written below are just the memories and the interpretation I happened to come away with. Fascinating stuff, but it doesn't really shake up my perception of reality. It does seem to have a positive effect on my mood though - well, so far anyway!]

62.5 g Peruvian caapi : 55.6 g Brazilian viridis. Sweetened with six cubes of table sugar. Shook a bottle of it thoroughly, and then drank nearly half of the contents. Might've been just a bit over a third of it, actually. Then changed my mind. :shock: And here I thought I was prepared mentally! It was as if the stomach recognized that, "uh-oh, the body is about to have a wild ride again!", and thus signaled to my brain that it had made a mistake. I didn't panic though. Drank down a 50 cl bottle of water. Tried to facilitate early purging. Drank down more such bottles of water. Succeeded in purging (early?) after 15-20 minutes, but still, after doing so... it began! No turning back. Tried to stay calm - and did so / was made calm/content by the brew (?)

Faint closed-eye geometric visuals floating about. Purple-green-ish. Different feeling in my body (I stood up some more this time, and walked about, but it felt like it was the same sort of body feeling as the last time); felt lighter, bouncier - almost goofy - thoughts that could be humourosly summed up as, "here I go becoming a leprechaun again!" Less than five minutes after it had kicked in it seemed I had entered a distorted, slightly art-deco-ish version of reality that kept looping in time for a good a while (10-15 minutes?) Some kind of an experiental lag. Then I went into a phase of remembrance. Past events. Especially those in the last few days, and some from last month. Or not the events per se, but people who were there at the time, now all convening in some communion / understanding (in a very abstract way)...

Soon after that, concepts and ontological facts seemed to be stripped from my world-view, as things merged, on some level. So hard to describe. With this, I began to have open-eye visuals that were nothing like the real world (which goes with the feeling of me losing the logical framework for it). In fact, soon, the regular world could not be seen at all (this would've been about 40 minutes into the experience). Again, the feeling of things accelerating towards some future event that was inevitable and pretty exciting - there was an "of course!" feeling to the process, like "this is what was meant to be all along!" Everything becoming one in the form of me. Not quite as solipsistic as last time though. I was bathed in wonder and soft, airy imagery. I believe it was somewhat colorful. Soft tones. Cloudy somehow. Rolling about head/body/arms brought up something like patches of flowers (but this is mostly something I remember afterwards, with me interpreting the motion and general behavior as something like animated cartoon flowers blossoming). Something like a "spiral wave" of "song" passing through and/or around me, with which I resonated via my own melodic glossolalia. This part was quite beautiful. Felt very relaxing and ethereal. I imagine it might've felt like some generic "healing".

Somewhere around that point, the world (or some conceptual analog) had begun morphing about, like the "Rubik's cube scenario" I described last time. Verbally, I interpreted it as being equivalent to, "the world could be this way, or like this! Or why not like this!? Hey, try this arrangement!" Yes! It was as if I was shifting about through various existences. I began in, and went back and forth from, my existence as it normally is, with the things that matter to me (such as the Zeitgeist movement) taking up "space", and other versions, that weren't all that different. At this point, I don't think my body was present in this "existence", just some shred of my normal consciousness. I'm sure there were some voices accompanying the experience at this point, but at the time of writing they are so faint that I almost doubt that I actually heard something so distinct, rather than just noise (and I do believe much of the experience came with some ambient sound). Ah, the insights, notions, delusions - whatever - are so much clearer while experiencing them. They fade too soon for me upon regaining normal consciousness. Could be that my two experiences so far have been too strong and/or detailed to sort out and make sense of. Anyway, the peak was somewhere in that state, and then it slowly went back to normal, in a way similar to the come-up, but in reverse, of course. In phases the real world became visible again. I "awoke" with my eyes already having been open. The whole thing lasted a bit over 3 hours.

All in all, the experience was similar to the first one, but I think it might actually have been stronger than my 60 g Peruvian caapi : 50 g Hawaiian viridis, of which I drank all of at once! I think I was more conscious during most of that experience (although it lasted longer) than I was during this second one, which also took me to a dream-like state much sooner. Now, I have a low BMI of 19 (nothing I'm particularly worried about, since the long-lived Okinawans have one of 20 on average -- a good deal more muscle would be nice though!), and have been on a foli-frugivorous diet (mostly fruits, and some leafy greens, tender vegetables) for 99% of the time of about a year. Perhaps my constitution makes me more sensitive? Because to me this felt like what I imagine a full-blown experience might be like, except I didn't have any visions of creatures or other entities (that I remember, anyway). Oh, and I have had some cherries in the last few days. Had a few on the day of the Ayahuasca session as well, but they weren't part of the last meal, and I didn't even have a cup of them. Mentioning that because apparently they have a bit of melatonin in them, as Minxx pointed out earlier this month. Also, apparently a fruity diet also supplies flavonoids that can act as MAOIs (?) I also eat my bananas when they are quite ripe, but not overripe (no alcohol taste or anything - they're just more sugary and creamy when the peel is quite spotted), and I know about the tyramine issue. [NOTE: other than having a glass of water I fasted for a bit over 3 hours before drinking the brew.] ... But perhaps the material was just / also suprisingly potent. The Peruvian caapi had a diameter of about 4 centimeters.

Research conducted by Reiter and colleagues at the University of Texas
Health Science Center found that a serving of cherries contains more melatonin
than what is normally found in the blood during the day. One serving is ½ cup dried
cherries, 1 cup frozen or juice or 2 tablespoons cherry juice concentrate.
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I've read here and there that melatonin could potentiate DMT, so...

Negative effect during the session (well, the only one that I could notice before the "dream" began): heart racing a bit. Negative after-effects: sleep not perfect, but at least I got some, unlike the first time (I was tired, but also too fascinated to just doze off, and I imagine the whole event must've upset my bodily homeostasis quite a bit). That, and a minor head-ache the following day (today), which didn't last long. (Otherwise, I "never" have head-aches. Might be attributed to the fact that people eating lots of vegetarian food have higher levels of aspirin in their blood than omnivorous people.)

Anyway, it turned out to be a very positive experience despite my initial apprehension at the start of it, but I'm not really all that interested in having these full-blown visions and dream-like states. If I am to do it again, I think I'd start by just having a sip of something like a 5 g : 5 g brew (or maybe even less, but perhaps, at these levels, it's not enough to get one "MAOI'd up" - perhaps one should have at least 10 grams of caapi, perhaps more, but still go very easy on the light), and wait at least 30 minutes before deciding whether to have a little bit more or not. But really, I think I might just be satisfied with barely anything happening. I'm not sure if these reality-tearing states of mind really are for me (plus, I don't like the idea that my heart might be racing throughout much of an experience that lasts hours). Either you guys really, really know what you're doing and/or you are really brave... and/or crazy. 😉 I think fruitarians may well have to be cautioned. Especially if they eat cherries on the days close to the Ayahuasca session, or otherwise get melatonin into their system.

The nice afterglow of the last brew seems to have lasted, on-and-off, for a month. Of course, now I took the brew again, so I don't know how long it really would've lasted without a "re-fill". I imagine that this, now reinforced, positive background state might last at least a month as well. So, now I want to hug people. Who's first? :)
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For my own ayahuasca experience, I too was particularly frustrated by the fatigue. It seemed like it would never go away. Unfortunately I spent much more time trying to fight it.
 
Sote said:
Also, apparently a fruity diet also supplies flavonoids that can act as MAOIs (?)
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I did some checking for natural MAOIs just now, and it appears catechin, quercitin, apigenin, and kaempferol are some MAO-A and/or MAO-B inhibitors that are known to be found in several fruits and/or vegetables.

Don't know if that would be something to take into consideration if one consumes nothing but fruit and veg. month after month.
 
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