Hi Wes

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 06:27:17 -0500, Wes Peterson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>Almost every plant food that is high in Omega-3, aside from flaxseed,
>>contains more than twice as much Omega-6 as Omega-3. So a vegan raw food
>>eater (which you are not) would have to eat a huge amount of flaxseed to
>>balance out the Omega-6,

>I don't agree with that assessment. The recommendations that I've read
>in several sources are for about 5:1 to 3:1 omega-6 to omega-3. That's
>easy to accomplish, eating only raw plant foods. Take a look at
>Udo Erasmus' book "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill" for the numbers.
>Since I eat fairly little fat-rich food in the first place, I personally
>don't have any problem balancing the ratio. For me, it's typically about
>1oz of nuts (hazelnuts or walnuts) per day, and the 2oz of flax seeds,
>in terms of the plant oil-rich foods in my diet. Check out the w6:w3
>numbers from a reliable source and you'll see the ratio is ideal.

There's a lot of w6:w3 ratio recommendations scattered around the web,
ranging from 1:1 to 10:1.  Erasmus himself recommends 2:1, according to
http://www.curezone.com/foods/fatspercent.asp.  Mercola recommends 1:1.
Cordain's recent book on the Paleo Diet recommends 1:1, following the
1998 paper by Eaton et al at
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Eaton%20N3%20Paleolithic.pdf
entitled "Dietary Intake of Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids
during the Paleolithic" which says:

"The w6:w3 PUFA intake ratio during this crucial evolutionary phase
has been estimated at from 4:1 to 1:1; however, the bases for such
estimates have been specified imprecisely, if at all. This paper
presents a further estimate for Paleolithic PUFA nutrition."
...
"In the case of EFA, current intake clearly differs from that of
our ancestors: preagricultural humans generally consumed w6 and w3
PUFA in roughly equal amounts. This pattern fueled the emergence
and development of our genus; evolutionary considerations commend
its restoration."

If the ratio of 1:1 is correct, then it is ONLY flaxseed which makes it
possible to attain the ratio on plant-foods alone.  It is arguably THE
crucial ingredient in the success of raw vegan diets (aside from B12).
In that case, your diet is successful because your flaxseed is such a
high proportion of your concentrated fat, and because your conc fat
intake as a whole is pretty low.

>So, you're saying that if I eat 2oz of ground flax seeds per day (which is the
>only "processed" food that I eat, BTW), then that's considered to be "relying
>heavily on processed food."? That doesn't add up.

Well, the success or failure of your diet seems to me to rest on a single
plant.  That's what I mean by "heavy reliance".  In contrast, there are
wild animals in just about every part of the world which could serve as an
adequate animal substitute.  I didn't say it was impossible to thrive on
a raw vegetarian diet, merely difficult.

>I can and do eat sizable quantities of greens, especially lettuce and celery,
>with no problems, and I find them to be enjoyable and valuable. I agree that
>things such as cabbage, broccoli, and kale, are hard to eat in large
>quantities. Diarrhea? None of that with me.

To get as much w3 from (say) lettuce as from flaxseed, one would need to eat
approx 500-1500 times as much by weight.  So 2 oz flax equates to approx
60-180 lb of lettuce, enough to have a laxative effect on anyone.  Maybe
gorillas and horses can get enough w3 from green leaves, but not us.
And our need is relatively greater because our w3-rich brains are bigger.

>I consider fresh greens to be important mainly for the mineral content, plus
>some other nutrients of value. They are an important food in an optimum diet.
>Some people prefer to juice them; I do not (I've experimented).

I agree and I eat a large salad every day which takes me an hour to chew my
way through.  But I don't regard it as a significant source of w3.

>Meat can't be highly important if I do great without it for substantial
>periods of time. If the meat is so important for humans, then it should be
>needed on a daily basis by everyone, or at least a weekly basis, would it not?

Surely the fallacy of this is clear if we substitute "B12" for "meat".
I think meat is wrongly valued for its protein-content;  the evidence
to me points far more towards its w3-content.  And that is not something
that we need daily or even weekly.  An w6:w3 imbalance may not show its
effects for years.  Its importance to pregnant females and infants, for
the developing brain & nervous system (50% w3), might well account for
its use as a bargaining tool (sex for meat) by male chimps.

>And I don't particularly enjoy the taste of raw meat "as is", anyway.
>Are my instincts telling me something?

I suspect that there are many animal foods that one develops a taste for
in childhood or not at all.  Westerners are brought up to eat egg but
not to drink blood, to eat pigs but not dogs, oysters but not insects.
As to why our instincts can adapt more readily to novel raw vegetables
than to novel raw meats, perhaps it has something to do with the dangerous
toxins and parasites that infected raw meat can harbour.

>>I don't much like flaxseed, and it ALWAYS gives me a headache the
>>next morning.

>It's not necessarily flax seeds per se that you may not
>like, but perhaps the ones you've tried.

Yeah, perhaps.  A bad batch, perhaps.  I only tried them 4 times.  But I've
rarely had a headache from anything else ...

>You might be interested in reading about Johanna Budwig's research
>on flax seeds/flax oil.  She helped many people to heal cancer and
>other diseases, aided by the use of flax as a key dietary component.

I'll look her up.  I'm not sick, never have been, and I want to stay
that way.

>Having said all that, and all theory aside, it has been my personal
>experience that I thrive best aided by a 100% raw, fruit-based
>diet...but not a vegan one. I have found that including small amounts of
>raw animal food in my diet has been of significant benefit to my health,
>well-being, and vitality.

My sentiments exactly.

Cheers
Lance