Kirt :
>Thank you for some of your clearest writing thus far on the list, Denis.

>It was interesting to hear of some of your historical discoveries, but
they remain fairly obscure IMO.
>As Peter mentioned just about any new "discovery" is based on earlier
work, and while I doubt that GCB >did the research you did,

Denis :
I very much doubt he did. I would bet other people did it for him .
Different people at different stages of the history of the movement, with a
good headstart from an erudite librarian already interested in the
topic.... Burger , like Comby, is  gifted  at recuperating other people's
work  and putting his  name on it, whenever he  can. I would bet he gained
access to the most important elements of his theory in no time ( except, of
course  for his personal contribution, ie suppression of milk, which took
him a few years of trial and eroors ) . If you prefer I would tend to think
he was "initiated ".  Switzerland is at the heart of  the modern  history
of food instinct, and you  can hardly  imagine what a private library of a
family  of academicians, or a swiss private foundation  can hold, in terms
of book treasures  before you've actually seen one. What I have is peanuts
compared to what he somehow  gained acceess to.

Kirt :
>it doesn't surprise me that someone might say that the more something is
>denatured the more addictive >it is when describing a drug, etc.

Denis :
I did not intend to tell you the full  story. It would be too long. I just
meant to explain you how one can be excited about following the same
intellectual track for years.
This small story about coca is just a side story , without any relations to
the rest of my research. But you will probably remember the diplomatic
incident caused by the president of the Republic of Bolivia (or was it
Colombia) who came to the Barcelona stadium (during the Olympic games)
chewing raw coca leaves and pretending it was not addictive....If the idea
that unprocessed foods cannot be addictive is more obvious for us  than  it
apparently  is for the media or the right-thinking , it is because it
belongs to our small  "family  of thought", that of "respecting one's
instinct by not denaturating any food". The history of the idea of food
instinct is also that of the denunciation of all the different modalities
of drug abuse, and the  fight for Prohibition in the US was the last
episode of this.   So If you want to find by yourself who is it that Burger
has plagiarised, you'd better look before The New Deal started.

Kirt :
>r your unspecified century-old source I'm sure you have reasons for
keeping it confidential.
Denis :
I certainly do.
1) I want to be sure Burger  doesn't escape the accusation of plagiarism.
But Burger is cunning. His most visible  plagiary is in cours
d'introduction, not in his book.
2) I certainly don't want the Combys, and the likes  to take advantage of
my time .

I  still have  a lot of work ahead and I'm sure I haven't found one tenth
of what I can find on the history, had I time to spend in libraries.

Kirt :
>Clara Davis deserves special mention and a summary of her findings and
life would be illuminating, if >you are so inclined. Most people on this
list are well-aware of the "study" mentioned in Adelle Davis' >book about
toddlers given choice of natural foods and selecting a balanced diet from
them. The usual >critisicm is that since the foods were all "good ones" any
combination would have resulted in a >balanced diet. I think Adelle's
report of her sister's research has made an impact and is still >discussed

Denis :
She does deserve special attention.  Adelle was not Clara's sister. The two
were just namesake, or I 'm really ill-informed. The criticism you
mentionned is one of those  criticism which gave the initial impetus to my
research, simply because it is so ignorant of Clara's own findings and that
of the people whose tradition she espoused. Don't count too much on a
summary of her life and research, although I would love to have the time to
do so. Remember I'm working full time and I have a house to repair during
the WE. IMHO, the booK which gave Clara's research  the widest audience is
not Adelle's but Benjamin Spock' Baby and Child Care.  I've tried to get in
touch with Dr Spock for some time now, but to no avail. He has  moved to
CAlifornia recently. I wanted to know if he had met Clara in person, and
his impressions, if he'd remember anything particular, just for the record.

I don't know why but I do have the impression that this last post of yours
is on a totally different tone
than the ones before. Is that what diplomats call " normalization of
relationships" ?

Cheers
Denis