Stefan:

> One of Burger's theories about the dying out of
> the Neandertal man (sp?) is that he began cooking   t o o   e a r l y
> and "gained" too much health problems so that Homo erectus outpopulated
> him.

Needless to say, there are other theories for the dying out of the Neanderthal
man. And it seems that the Homo sapiens has pretty well succeeded in surviving
(almost 6 billion people nowadays).

> My idea is that there was an evolutionary bottleneck that forced people
> in colder climates to begin with cooking.

Not so sure. The only raw culture is the Eskimo one, which lives in one of the
coldest places in the world. And people in the hottest climates eat cooked,
including come foods that are edible raw like meat. In addition, some of the
foods they eat are inedible raw. I just suspect that people, once they mastered
fire, started to play with it, including putting meat or tubers (or whatever) in
it. The food smelled pleasant and much stronger than raw food, and a few of them
tried it. Perhaps only very little of it, since they were not sure of what they
were doing. But since when they woke up the next morning they didn't notice any
bad effects, they judged that cooking wasn't dangerous and started to add some
more.

> Further I think that those people knew
> quite well what they were doing and noticed all of the bad effects of
> their cooking.

> ...<snipped>...
> Remember: if you clogg up your arteries you probably won't notice it
> until you have a stroke. Such cases are known.

> ...<snipped>...
> I prefer to get an imme-
> diate warning over feeling fine for years and suddenly noticing that
> I'm becoming blind or diabetic or arthritic or ... (add to the list
> any degenerative disease you want).

But hunter-gatherer people don't get these diseases, despite eating a
substantial amount of cooked food.

> Why not doing the next step and switch back to 85%+ cooked food and
> SAD? Which forces are holding you back? ;-)
> ...<snip>...
> The track record of instincto is impressing enough for me to go on with
> it. And the record of SAD/GBK is so incredible bad that I can't see a
> way back for me.

There is a considerable difference between a partially cooked, paleo diet and
SAD (or GBK, CFT, whatever).

It is my opinion that predominantly raw is better than predominantly cooked, but
I don't think a small amount of cooked food (no frying, no salt, no wheat and
dairy) can't harm.

> And even if I'd grow tumors when overdoing with meat

BTW, I checked in a scientific source, and it seems there in no good evidence
that protein promotes tumor growth. However, tumors grow less quickly on low fat
diets and calorie-restricted diets. The type of fat is also important:
polyUNsaturated acids have a more important effect than saturated fat.

Finally, fat and calories have an effect only on already existing tumors, i.e.
they don't initiate the tumor.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
[log in to unmask]