It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. One of the families were survivalists, who live on a farm in Iowa. But that is not the bizarre part…compared to some of the other stuff they were doing, being survivalists seemed positively mainstream.
First of all, they are into a raw food diet. And I mean EVERYTHING raw, including all their meat, such as chicken. They also believe that bacteria is good for you, so they don’t clean their house. Now, they have done the dirty-house thing to death on these shows, but I have never seen anything like this. The inside of the toilet bowl was black with grime, for instance…and I mean BLACK. They milked their own cows for milk & yogurt, and the milk was sitting in these open buckets in the basement…anything could have gotten in there…bugs, small animals, whatever.
Their house was seriously the grossest thing I have ever seen.
They brushed their teeth with a mixture of butter & clay, and their gums looked none too healthy.
Of course, the kids were being “homeschooled,” which in this case means that they worked on the farm 10 hours a day.
So, my question is, is there a chance that child services may come knocking on these folks’ door, now that they’ve shown the world how they live? I can’t help but think that in this case, it might be warranted for someone to check it out!
Did anyone else see this? Any reactions similar to mine?
My sentiments were exactly the same as Antigen’s. Just watching the trailer was quite enough, thank you. Now you tell us about warm new cow yogurt? Butter n’ clay toothpaste? Okay, there’s a sound coming out of my throat like a cat trying to cough up a hairball and I can’t make it stop.
I caught the last 15 minutes. I cringed when I learned that family was from Iowa, but I think it’s southern Iowa, so it’s almost Missouri.
I wondered about CPS paying them a visit too. I read their manual on the website, where dad says the kids are “unschooled”.
Do you think their innards are full of parasites? I know people who eat raw beef, but not chicken. How about pork? They didn’t eat raw pork, did they?
Later last night I watched something on Discovery, where a scientist was looking at a child’s vertebrae which was full of holes. The scientist said this was caused by a form of tuberculosis caused by drinking milk that hadn’t been boiled.
What did the normal wife eat while she was there? Did she stick with veggies?
I happened to catch that show and I can’t help but wonder whether there’s a connection between the Iowa family’s diet and their predisposition to mental breakdowns at the drop of a hat. Or a cheeseburger, as it were. That teenage boy strikes me as a serial killer in training.
Quote of the show: (paraphrasing) “Why would god put something on earth that could hurt us?” -Iowa dad when asked about possible health issues when eating nothing but raw food
Sarafeena, I thought about the same thing. They seemed like nice enough people (not counting the random wild outbursts), but geez. I wonder what their families think?
I don’t think they showed her eating anything in the house. I couldn’t believe that city-dad caved and allowed country-mom to feed the little boy raw chicken. That would have been a total dealbreaker.
Yea, I don’t know where he was coming from with that one.
Lieu, you missed hearing about the best part. “High meat” which meats meat allowed to rot for three months before you eat it. Yum.
I didn’t watch it, nor have I ever even previously heard of this show, but my mom was watching it and kept sending me IMs “oh my god this is so gross…” and then giving me painful details about how disgusting it all was. She said the mom was licking the kitchen floor at one point??
[QUOTE=Omega GloryLieu, you missed hearing about the best part. “High meat” which meats meat allowed to rot for three months before you eat it. Yum.[/QUOTE]
*means * meat, of course.
Yes, OpalCat, she licked the city people’s floor because she was confident that it wouldn’t harm her. The guy wanted to clean it, and kind of jokingly dared her to lick if she thought it was so clean it didn’t need sweeping/mopping.
No, they didn’t eat raw pork that I saw…the only meat they seemed to have was chicken…but raw CHICKEN! Ewww…
I think the normal wife did stay away from all the meat & milk that they had, which would have pretty much left her with only vegetables. I would have been starving by the end of the week, myself…but I never would have eaten that raw chicken.
And, oh, yes…I forgot about the “high meat.” I swear, it was worse than the stuff they make them eat on Survivor!h
Yeah. The high meat was probably one of the grossest things in that whole episode for me. The worst part is that the dad describes it as having a bit of a “twang” and I had to wonder what he meant by that, as he made a gross face while eating it.
I can respect in some ways being a survivalist over being so superficial and materialistic, but I think that the Iowa family was taking their survivalist stance to an extreme… well, other than that whole “having the internet” thing. Seems not to jive well with my concept of being a survivalist. (Methinks I’ve read a few too many pastoral novels.)
Saw it. That “high meat” was little pieces of beef, in a glass jar, aged for four+ months, but then they kept it in the fridge. Huh? Why bother, at that point?
I so shouldn’t have watched it, because I was down with the flu yesterday and it was the most disgusting, vomit-inducing house I’ve ever seen. Yes, they eat raw beef, chicken, eggs, but I saw no pigs, at least. Raw milk, I’ve heard of, and while I wouldn’t feed it to my kids, I understand that people used to drink it and survive. But raw chicken? Rotten beef? Possibly the most gastronomically revolting episode I’ve seen.
I never watch this program, but a coworker begged me to watch it for her and tell her about it, so I did. I regret that decision. I finally turned it off when the survivalist father broke down sobbing, wailing, falling to the floor in the bathroom because his kids were suffering some gastric distress as a result of eating a high fat cooked meal (which, by the way, even the father said tasted great while they were eating it). His emotional breakdown was quite unnerving, considering that the “harm” he had done to his kids by letting them eat cooked food was temporary. I thought the black city mother could have handled the whole situation better, especially with the teenaged boy, by not insisting that the kids were being brainwashed. She was essentially asking the kids to turn against their parents without having all the information she needed about the health risks and benefits…which, by the way, the doctor and nutritionist she took them to see did not do a good job discussing. She was even objecting to them eating raw veggies, which seemed strange.
I did think there was a bit of an interesting situation when the farm mom, confronted by the city dad about the fact that she didn’t take any care with her looks, had a revelation that she could probably get her message across to more people more easily if she presented herself better. She saw improving her looks as a strategic move, whereas the city dad wanted her to change for aesthetics alone. And I do think it was a bit much of her to insist that they throw away all their clothing…wouldn’t it be enough to ask them to box it up in the garage for the duration? You can’t expect them to take that kind of economic hit just for a TV show.
Both sides of the equation were intolerant of the views of the other, and didn’t offer solutions that would work as compromise…there are plenty of biodegradable cleaners out there that don’t include bleach, for example. And it was funny that the teenage farm boy got very interested in feng shui!
I looked for a thread about it after watching the show, but I didn’t feel up to starting one myself. I was really curious about the “philosophy” these people were living by. They mentioned some “nutritionist” they saw instead of doctors. Are there other people who live and eat like this? Interestingly, they also mentioned that they had only been on this diet for about a year. What on earth would convince someone who wasn’t already brainwashed that this was something to try? They must have been mentally ill before they went on this diet (though I can’t imagine what the diagnosis would be–is there a DSM code for “fucking idiots”?)
Other oddities:
The mother believed in minimizing the drinking of water, saying that we hydrate by consuming fats. (I know fat digestion does produce water, but not enough for a human to live off of, right?)
They milked the animals and then cut up raw chicken without washing their hands.
They believed (of course) that this diet had all sorts of miraculous healing properties. The father was convinced that it was curing his male pattern baldness despite the fact that it obviously was not!
Do they force everyone involved to say they “learned something”? The urban father talked afterwards about how the crazy woman taught him to think about what chemicals they use and where their food comes from. Seriously? He learned that from her?
I, too, was convinced that the state has to be knocking on their door now that this has been exposed. I wonder how the kids will handle it?
I missed this episode and after reading this I’m glad I did. How does one brush one’s teeth with butter? Butter??
Also, why did the normal wife stay? Show or now show, contract or no contract, I would have been out of there shortly after I’d set foot in that house.
She did leave a day early – spent the final night in a hotel. I didn’t see what preceded that. She put up with it for 13 days and something special happened on day 14? Was it because the son was so upset?
I don’t believe raw pork is the danger it once was–heck, even I’ve even raw pork before when seasoning a sausage after a pig slaughter. Raw chicken, though, would squick the hell out of me, although apparently there is such a dish as chicken sashimi.
