Bidets and Toilet Stools Are Ideal for Raw Food Enthusiasts

Bidets and Toilet Stools: No. 1 Tools for an Improved No. 2 Bathroom Experience

Bidets and toilet stools are not items I bring up all the time when talking about raw food or the short list of most valuable purchases I’ve made but deserve attention in both conversations. It’s high time I stand up to share my experiences sitting down in the loo.

I want to make a striking statement: It often takes me less time to go No. 2 and tidy up than it does for me to pee—especially when emptying out watermelon! For a low-fat raw fooder, this is a lot of time saved every day, especially considering we require a few more daily trips for sit-down time compared with those on standard diets.

You see, in nature, porcelain bowls don’t exist, and we wouldn’t eliminate waste with our knees at hip height. We’d squat, dropping our bums close to the earth. Using a toilet stool such as a Squatty Potty, we can mimic how we’d hunker down behind a tree or bush—promoting the correct anatomical angle by placing our knees above our hips—to experience faster, complete elimination. This posture helps with constipation, hemorrhoids, colon disease, urinary difficulty for women and pelvic floor issues. I’ve used buckets flipped upside down but prefer a Squatty Potty for enabling a wider, more comfortable stance. Squatty Ecco is the most affordable model and the one I use.

Using Bidets Makes for Faster, Better, Environmentally Friendly Cleanup

Now, Part 2 of going No. 2 involves cleanup. When I garden without gloves, I use my elbows or pinky finger to turn on a faucet, wash my hands with water—and then I reach for a towel. It would be absolutely asinine, after all, to smear dirt all over my hands by rubbing them with a towel first, right?

Why, then, have so many of us been doing less-than-pristine job when it comes to cleanup in the bathroom? Every day, hundreds of million people flush money down their toilets in the form of toilet paper, whose manufacture encourages deforestation. There is a better way, and it’s called using a bidet (pronounced be-DAY). Bidets train a stream of water at the bottom for less invasive, more hygienic cleanup. They are used extensively in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand along with many other countries in southern Europe, South America and the Middle East.

In the United States, however, bidets are almost impossible to find. We’ve been reared using what I consider to be the wrong approach in spending our time on the throne by sitting incorrectly and relying on toilet paper.

The New York Times offers this synopsis as to why the bidet never caught on in the United States:

“The fixture, which was invented by French furniture makers in the early 18th century, was rejected by the English, who regarded French imports as tainted with the hedonism and sensuality of that country. That sentiment, rather than the bidet itself, traveled to America, [New York University Professor Harvey] Molotch said. Later, at the turn of the last century, he said, bidets installed in an upscale Manhattan hotel incited public protest, resulting in their removal. And during World War II, the bidet suffered another blow when American soldiers encountered it in European brothels, perpetuating the idea that bidets were somehow associated with immorality.”

Since fall 2010, I’ve used a bidet that connects to a toilet—and positively love it! I experienced a different kind of bidet while in Thailand in fall 2013 that some refer to affectionately as a “bum gun.” This bidet resembles a kitchen sink spray hose and is quite forceful in its blasting of water. Explore these two kinds of bidets: ABS Bidet Shower Head Sprayer and LUXE Bidet Vi-110. Squatty Potty also produces bidets.

A bidet and stool combine for a bathroom experience that saves so much time, money and energy—and makes you feel so much better!