Stacie Tolen wrote
>Bronwen also noted:
>"Also,  since eating more red meat, I have had a lot of it sticking in my
>teeth-painfully."
>
>I had this problem too for a while. My MIL still refuses to eat chicken or
>beef becuase of how much it hurts her teeth, but at least she's eating fish
>now and sometimes ground lamb.
>
>I don't know whether there's something in particular about grains and dairy
>or if it's just that these are soft foods, but when my diet was based on
>these foods I had very tender gums. Since chewing involves the gums as well
>as the teeth, I guess that my gums were just underused.

   Two or three years back - when the e. coli scare in hamburgers was big &
all restaurants were forced to cook their meat anywhere from done to done
to the point of charcoal - Doug Kaufmann had on his Dallas show "Your
Health Matters" a doctor who pointed out that the problem was not so much
in the doneness - or lack thereof - of the meat, but, rather, the method in
which it is taken into the mouth on the way to the stomach. After all,
everyone and everything is bombarded every day with all sorts of bacterial
creatures, including e. coli. The majority of the time,  if we keep up our
immune system, we are not hurt by these bad bacterial types.
   We have been taught to "fletcher-ize" (remember the rule to chew 40
times before swallowing?) everything we ingest, which is fine for cows.
This doctor stated that we should eat our meat in chunks as the canine
animals would, not chew it into an unrecognizable mass. Then the acids in
the stomach will have more time to do their work. Mush will have an
opportunity to pass through - along with the "baddies" riding shotgun -
much faster into the intestinal tract.
   The fletcherizing is for the plant material, just as chewing the cud is
for the cow. The salivary glands are there to start the process of
converting the sugars (that's why I don't use my dentures much). They are
needed, as we don't have 3 or 4 stomachs to process the plant matter. This
means that one has to have a good set of "chompers" to create the plant mass.
   For those of us who went so long so stupidly on a SAD type diet and have
no teeth, alternatives to processing the plant matter need to be taken. One
way I have found to be satisfactory is to ferment my vegetables into kim
chee, anywhere from the traditional hot pepper/ginger one with bok choy,
onions, garlic, & carrots, to fermented ginger carrots, beets, turnips,
dilled cucumbers, what have you. I use no prepared vinegar. I just ferment
from scratch (from whatever is in the air), which means a high level of
lactic acid, which encourages the "friendly bacteria" to stand their ground
& help fight the "baddies." I usually shred my vegetables in the
preparation process & will sometimes put the fermented ones in the blender
to form a modified gazpacho, which tastes fantastic when swished around in
the mouth, picking up the necessary saliva for the first digestive process.
   What a great way to get one's daily "veggies" - uncooked, no less. It
also follows the motto of the National Health Federation: Don't eat
anything that doesn't rot, but eat it before it does.
   Since I have been fermenting my vegetables, my skin has softened, and my
legs - which were looking like a diabetic's legs - have been improving and
regaining the original skin color. Also, I had been using a cane to walk
with for about half a year. I am in the process of walking on my own two
feet without the use of that cane. This, in addition to returning to the
paleo concept of eating meats, etc.
   In summary, eat your meat like a wolf (but not so wolvishly that you
choke on the chunks) & your vegetables/fruits like a cow or goat. After
all, God gave us both canines & molars & - hopefully - the sense to know
the difference between the two sets.

Mary Anne Unger