Hi all,

Liza:
>But - honestly - eating the dirt on veggies, banana peels, and
>eggshells, just don't seem to me to be an effective use of time and
>energy, for me at least. It just makes me laugh - all this is  "pushing
>my envelope."  :)  And

You haven't had the joys of instinctive eating yet, else you would care
more for the dirt on the carrots, Liza! ;-) :-)
Seriously, just try avocados (thin-skinned ones) together with their
skin. You might find it being the same as if you added spices to the
pure avocado flesh. Can be fantastic! Spiced avocados!

For the other methods I use: I try to reach for simplicity. I'm a very
lazy type of man so I hate washing, cleaning, peeling, preparing and
making a big fuss where I just needed to bite into the fruit and that's
it.

I haven't got a scientific proof (but perhaps Jean-Louis will bring
one? ;-)) for the digestibility of egg shells. But if some instinctos
are enjoying them, others finding them hard and bad (like me) then at
least the instincts seem to know about them and this would speak for
usefulness and digestibility (why should the instinct let you enjoy
something that is useless for you?)


Kirt:
>Now, now, Stefan, here we go again. I make a few sarcastic jokes and I am
>therefore negative and depressive. ;)

Of course you are! ;-) Soooo sarcastic.

Kirt:
>Perhaps some of the humor is getting lost in the translation.

That could be the explanation. Still I stick more to the "bright" sort
of jokes, not the "black" ones, if you know what I mean.

Kirt:
>Perhaps you'll just have to get used to me offending the instincto Gods
>once in a while, eh?

Unless you affirm me that you are a regular church goer I will not ex-
cuse your offending of the Gods. ;-) For the sake of your black paleo-
lithic soul you must at least buy a copy of the newest version of G.C.
Burger's book! (Together with a copy of "Raw Eating" from A.T. Hova-
nessian). :-)

Kirt:
>Perhaps there's nothing worse than an ex-instincto around
>questioning tidbits like tumors and the utility and deeper meanings of
>fruit skin consumption, but, golly gee Ms Molly, negative and depressive?

I wonder why you enthusiastically go for the negative tidbits while
the overwhelming majority of good results seem to be just the normal
level. But I guess this is the way people behave: if everything is fine
they take it for granted and think it's normal while they start to com-
plain heavily when things aren't good any longer. A very ungrateful
attitude, Sir. (But normal, sigh :-\)


Jean-Louis:
>2) But it seems that some instinctos act in an even more primitive way
>than apes... Avoiding what can't be produced without technology is a
>valuable philosophy, but obviously, oranges and bananas can be peeled
>without difficulty by humans and several species of apes. You can usually

But try to peel a kohlrabi, a carrot or a pumpkin without a knife! My
point isn't that all kind of peeling is unnatural but that it is truly
unnatural for several foods. Therefore my attitude is to always try if
the skin (and the seeds) can be eaten together with the inside of the
food. If this fails one can switch to peeling/spitting skins out/spitting
seeds out etc.
I don't find avoiding obsolete work primitive. It's more a question of
avoiding an effort (wasting energy) where you can.

Jean-Louis:
>But in a sense, instinctos also want the magic pill,
>i.e. food that is self-regulated by pleasure (and pain).

Yes, exactly! This is one of the very basic assumptions instinctive eating
is founded on: pleasure is leading you to health, pain leads you to sick-
ness. At least if you keep away from unnatural methods. This is not a magic
pill, it's just MN (mother nature, term taken from Rex - hopefully not con-
sidered plagiarized! ;-))

Jean-Louis:
>our abnormal attraction to sweets. All humans at any age are attracted to
>sweets, even young children which are obviously less intoxicated than old
>men having previously worked 40 years in a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I don't subscribe to this. I can also be attracted by a sour taste or even
a bitter one, e.g. sesame seeds, chicoree, cocoa. There is a difference bet-
ween a palatable bitter taste and one that puts you off.

Jean-Louis:
6) I don't believe that being cold is a sign of detoxification.

Then give a better explanation. If my instincts don't lead me to dense foods
but to fruits as was the case in the beginning and I feel cold and it fades
away after some months then it very much looks like detox to me.
Also like Mike wrote it can happen that a new food makes me cold although
I thought I overcame that problem already. If it is a question of adaptation
then even a paleolithic human would have had this problem with new foods
and this I seriously doubt.

Jean-Louis:
>human, the more sugar, the better (i.e. there is no selective advantage to
>having a mechanisms which limits sugar intake). The deleterious effects of an
>excess of sugar would never have happened without technology and artificial
>selection.

I find dates, bananas and honey very natural. Dates are quite easy to get
if you can climb a tree, an easy task for a paleo human. So I expect the nu-
trition instinct to know about high sugar foods and how to limit intake by
giving stops.

Jean-Louis:
>often a sign of toxicity. Hypothetic animals carrying a gene which makes them
>like bitterness would quickly become extinct.

Well I see I will die out soon. As said above there are different kinds of
bitterness. The bitterness of cocoa can be luminous.

I suspect the sugar industry to be responsible for spreading the rumour about
our "sweet tooth". Perhaps together with the fact that like Ellie wrote
processed sugars are indeed addictive.
I'm really not sure if humans have a sweet tooth. Hm. It frequently happens
to me, that in the evening I start thinking about what to eat. And the
thought comes "oh no, not again sweet things as you had at noon". I am
frequently really put off by sweet foods in the evening. The more I will en-
joy them at the next noon meal.

Rex,
welcome to this list. Interesting to have a farmer here!
Does the "Brix" detect how fresh a fruit/vegetable is? What stands "NPK"
for?

Mike,
I enjoyed your long posts about your instincto experiences. Very good!

Instinctive greetings to all,

Stefan
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