Doug,

Good posting, Doug, very informative.  Nice to hear your virtual voice
again.

I have some questions, though:

>If you recall that Eskimo stuff I posted a while back, they were
>healthy but had maybe a third lopped off normal lifespans due to
>their high protein (and mostly RAF) diet.  They simply began to fall
>apart around age 50 or so, with people living into their 60s being
>exceptionally long-lived for that population.

I'm not sure how you're defining health here, but dying at 50 doesn't
sound healthy to me.

>I define "optimally" as maximal lifespan, & there is no question
>that protein beyond the minimal levels required (easily acquired in
>a raw-veg diet) shortens lifespan.

Just to clarify, are you lumping all protein, raw, cooked, animal,
non-animal in the same category?

>Some of us (& I believe Bob Avery falls in this category) don't opt
>for raw-veg out of guilt, but out of scientific motivations.  I
>could care less about the killing arguments or whatever.  What
>motivates me is simply what I have concluded is most healthy for me.

Well, that's how I started out, cold and detached, but  after a period of
living without animal flesh, I spontaneously began to become more attuned
to the pain and suffering of other creatures without even trying.  There
does seem to be some kind of karmic influence at work with vegan foods.
(What do you think, bodhi?)  Whenever I go back and sample flesh foods, I
start to feel a sort of  "hardness," or insensitivity, beginning to
return, which does not feel to me like a desirable emotional condition.
Like you, Doug, I suspect that optimal nutrition is obtainable with
little or no animal intake, so I don't feel trapped on the horns of a
dilemma like Peter does.  What's optimal for me may also be optimal other
living creatures and the environment too.

>American which just came out, there is a good article on Parkinson's
>disease.  It goes into how the pathology of this disease causes both
>iron & calcium to be released from stores in the brain, & these then
>gum up the works & create all sorts of problems.

To what do you attribute Herbert Shelton's Parkinsonism in later life?

>I'm convinced that calcium will someday be regarded as a dangerous,
>aging-accelerating substance too.

Do you mean inorganic calcium, or calcium from raw foods too?

>I just say a photo of Viktorkas Kuvalinkas (if I just
>spelled his name correctly, it is a miracle)

Don't worry, you didn't.

>, & just from looking at his face it looked to me as if he is aging in
>the manner I would expect someone subsisting largely on
>sprouts/vegetables, as opposed
>to fruits, i.e., he was aging faster than if he had eaten much more
>fruit.  He had excessive enlargement of the nose & ears and deposits
>under the skin, which I take to be signs of calcium deposition.

Interesting; so I guess you mean raw calcium.  Mostly, my own
interpretation of Viktoras Kulvinskas is that he is greatly enervating
himself with constant travel, lecturing, lack of sleep, and SBGA
intoxication.

>I know that mountain gorillas (who eat about 2/3rds vegetable, 1/3rd
>fruit) use celery as the main staple of their diet.

Also interesting.  When I tried a few fledgling Instincto experiments
last year, the only veggies that really smelled good to me were celery,
parsley, and sometimes kale.  The others were odorless.  (But I found
cauliflower delicious-tasting, even though I couldn't smell it.)

>runoff, there is every reason to expect deficiencies.  As a general
>rule, unless there is a load of freshly-pulverized rock of igneous
>origin, the soil will probably be lacking to some extent.  [See
>"Survival of Civilization" by Hannamaker & Weaver- I believe that is
>the correct title/authors.]

Close --- it's Hamaker.

>synthetic diets.  But in spite of this there is no question that of
>carbs., fats & proteins, protein is the most aging of the three, and
>carbs are the least.  For Weindruch and Walford to say that (I have

Are you suggesting a diet of starches and fruits only, then, as optimal?

>quick conclusions.  Bob Avery has noted that eating nuts raises his
>body temp. (the absolute best way of monitoring the efficacy of
>lifespan regimes) & pulse the following day.  Bob, did you determine
>if this temp.-raising effect was above that coming from simply the
>increased caloric intake this entailed?

I'm not sure, Doug, but I now think it might have more to do with the
calorie effect.  Perhaps a careful study of my daily logbook would yield
some clues, but I don't have the time.  Lately I'm noticing that
water-drinking lowers my body temp, but I think this also interferes with
digestion --- a mixed bag.

>The absolute worst thing to feed someone breaking a long fast is
>protein.  I went into shock after my first long fast (which ran 15
>days).  On the second day after breaking it I was watching TV & not
>really paying attention to what I was eating or how much I was
>eating.  I was eating raisins & sunflower seeds, & ate a little too
>much (a quantity I could easily handle when not in an immediate
>post-fasting state).  I went into shock maybe half an hour later,

I got nauseous from eating bee pollen the day after breaking my long
Feb/Mar fast this year, but it didn't last long.  I was aerobically bike
riding when it happened, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

>Sleep requirements are directly related to the life-shortening
>effects of the diet, & for this reason only a few hours of sleep are
>often needed when deep into a fast (when we are aging the least).
>Was it on this list that Bob Avery related how little sleep he gets
>by on eating a minimal-calorie/raw-veg diet?

Yes, by this standard I'm doing pretty well.  The less I eat, the less
sleep I need, and the more active I am (up to a point, of course).  I
average about 6 hrs sleep with no need for more.  I can often do well on
4.5 hrs for a few days, but then have to make up for it  later.  Last
week I kinda pushed it.  Sunday night (a week ago) I got 3.5 hrs sleep,
then 2.75 the next night.  The following evening (Tuesday) was my dance
class night, an hour's drive away.  I was doing fine all day until I
decided to eat "breakfast," or whatever it was, around 4-5 pm.  After
eating, I started to get drowsy around 6.  I had to leave for class at
6:30, but I knew I'd be a major road hazard in my suddenly somnambulent
condition, so I decided to take a 30-minute nap.  Well, I woke up around
2.5 hrs later, so I never did make it to dance class that night...
Usually I don't nap either, maybe once/twice a month, so that was an
extreme case.

>that sunlight may somehow help too.  Traveling in cars, planes or
>trains depletes our electrons (due to static electrical effects
>caused by the vehicle passing through the air), & this is why travel
>can make you tired.  Getting back to where this post started (with

I never heard that before.  Where did you learn of it?  I always assumed
it was oxygen deprivation, because that's a factor in planes and cars
too.

Bob Avery ([log in to unmask])