Kirt:
>Prehistorically speaking, it may be that our genetic heritage includes
>not only a tolerance, but even the need for some cooked food. While I
>doubt I'll ever believe there is anything useful to me in grains, it
>doesn't seem an outrageous possibility to me that the tens of
>thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of years our progentetors
>have been cooking their wild hunted and gathered foods hasn't left its
>mark on our DNA. Perhaps we not only tolerate cooked meat and veggies
>but find some amount useful. ???

I find this line of thinking very interesting. I think there can be
little doubt that we through our ancestors have adapted to eating at
least small amounts of natural foods cooked - which of course carry no
resemblance to the highly processed cooked foods that most people
sustain themselves on today.  Logic follows that if this genetic
adaptation is a reality, a 100% raw diet would be inferior to a diet
that included at least small amounts of foods cooked. Cooking does
destroy many naturally occurring toxins & microbes in the foods and
makes them more easily available by breaking them down and predigesting
them. Like we have lost our ability to synthesize vitamin C, maybe we
no longer digest and extract nutrients from raw foods as well as we
used to or deal with the naturally occurring toxins and microbes as
effectively as before we starting heating them.  Regarding the
denatured molecules and free radicals that cooking creates, the human
body could have evolved enzymes and antioxidants to be able to deal
with them in small amounts.

>I wonder if I can get away with these foods because of my relatively
>long time exclusively raw--or if the would have worked all along.

I believe that it would have worked all along. The big question is -
everything else equal - at what ratio of raw foods to cooked does
health begin to suffer?

>My hunch is that excluding them for years gives me a good perspective
>(emotionally, intellectually, and metabolically) from which to judge
>their usefulness.

With this unusual perspective it will be very interesting to follow how
you both do. If the above is true you should do better.

>And most of all, I can now proudly say, I am not and no longer intend
>to be 100% raw.

And I am proud I do not and I no longer intend to work out at the gym
every day. ;-)

>Hopefully this will keep me from falling off whatever edge so many
>100%ers seem to fall off ;) ;)

It might be a little too late if as I suspect everybody who has
attempted a 100% raw food diet already has fallen off the edge. ;-)

>Melisa has a bun in the oven which will be done
>in late January. A huge delight to us after two miscarries...

Congratulations! After having read somewhere - I forget where - that
raw kefir has shown to be effective in some cases of infertility, I
cannot help but think that maybe that was what did the trick for you.

Best, Peter
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PS. Thanks for posting the dialogue between you and Dean on
Stefansson'a experiment. I never believed that Stefansson's diet during
that year was 100% raw but was like you surprised to learn that it
basically was all cooked.