Hi Liza,

Here's a bit of interesting reading for you..and
perhaps others

http://www.veg.on.ca/newsletr/novdec96/evolution.html

I'm just putting it in hear because I have reached my
5 mail limit tonight. ;-)

Liza May schrieb:
> Alan,
>
> Some quick replies,
>
> > What
> > they fail to tell you is that almost every cow is treated with
> > antibiotics, for example, because they get sore teats from the milking
> > machines (known as mastitis).
>
> Mastitis doesn't come from the milking machines.
>
> Any of us who have nursed our children, or who have worked on dairy farms,
> or who have pets, can tell you that mastitis comes from the glands becoming
> engorged with milk. This happens for a variety of reasons, some of them
> completely natural.
>
Sorry Liza, but unless your country has another definition, mastitis
is any remains an infection/inflammation of the teats (however, it
is caused).

> > You either get the pus in your milk
> > (which you do up to a certain level in most cases anyway) or you
> > get both the pus and the antibiotics used to "cure" the problem.
> > This also applies to cows which are raised "biologically" and
> > "organically" because it is a legal requirement.
>
> That is not the case here in the U.S. Here, a dairy farmer can choose to
> avoid antibiotics completely, and can sell his milk to consumers who don't
> want antibiotics in their milk.
>
So you are saying that, due to a lack of a law, dairy farmers can
also sell milk containing pus? Bon appetit (either way).

> > It is certainly true (and nobody
> > can deny this) that early man never attempted to suck the teats
> > of any wild animal (and lived to tell the tale). ;-)
>
> Well, you're wrong here. As a matter of fact, in the movie "KingPin" (by
> the brothers that made "Something About Mary") Woody Harrelson does, in
> fact, attempt to do this, and does indeed live to tell the tale. I
> recommend seeing this scene.
>
Did you not perhaps forget the smiley? At least I hope you did.

> But seriously, why is this argument always made in this way? Who said we'd
> have to actually suck the teats of the animal, in order to get the milk?

Did early man have milking machines? Did early man employ fearless
people as milkers of wild cattle (more like ferocious buffaloes in
those days according to the pictures we are presented with)? How
else would you get at the milk???

> Do
> you eat eggs?

No...but eggs aren't milk..and we were talking about milk.

> Do you suck the egg out of the chicken?

The chicken ejects the egg itself sooner or later. Why should I
need to suck it out of the chicken???

> Or suck the carrot
> right up out of
> the dirt? What happened to using hands?

I am less afraid of dirt than big, wild buffaloes. ;-)

> Paleo people had manners, too.
>
So which manners did they use to get at the milk of other mammals??

> > The dairy industry also claims that cowmilk is necessary for
> > the protein and hence the growth of children (not to mention strong
> > healthy bones). If this is the case, why do babies wean off of milk
> > (they instinctively reject it...mother's milk.. after a few years)
>
> Why are you comparing mother's milk and cow's milk? I thought you've
> stressed that they are different foods.
>
If people went around drinking mothers' milk after being weaned
off, they would most likely (if there were enough mothers with
enough excess milk around to meet the demand) experience the
same problems (albeit at a much lower level as human milk is the
right formula for the growth of baby humans) as those drinking
the milk of a cow (which is meant to support the much higher and
faster growth rate of calves).

> > and why does no other mammal drink milk after weaning off
>
> My cat LOVES milk. At one point we had ten cats at once, and they ALL loved
> milk. Our pigs loved milk. Our baby goats drank cow's milk. Our dogs love
> milk. Our raccoon drank milk.
>
Some domesticated (and even some wild) animals can be induced to
drink milk..as the smell is right. This does not detract from
the fact that it is always bad for them (ask any vet or read
any good book on pets) and often fatal.

> > and why
> > are the strongest creatures with the heaviest bones on this earth
> > (elephants, buffalo, gorillas) strict vegetarians?
>
> First of all, they're not.

Which of those mentioned above eats meat if I may ask?

> And second of all, most of us are humans, we're
> not any of
> those other things you named, and so we don't find it especially consistent
> with being humans to spend all our waking hours sitting there eating, in
> order to get in a day's calories.
>
Humans get their calories from carbohydrate foods in the first
instance (i.e. foods containing simple sugars). Meat (i.e. the
saturated fat in meat) is neither healthy for the human system
and nor is it a good source of energy.

> > 2. Eating is not only a nutritional but also a sensual thing. By
> > fasting you prepare your body for a raw diet to which you are
> > unaccustomed. After a two week fast (on water only) you will eat
> > almost anything with relish and it thus makes it easier to make
> > the switch.
>
> It is precisely because of the fact that after a fast a person wants to eat
> anything and everything in site, that it could possibly make it EXCEEDINGLY
> difficult to restrict one's diet to all raw only. It is VERY hard, after a
> fast, to refrain from eating ANYTHING. I wouldn't want Axel or anyone else
> to get the wrong idea and think that fasting will make it easier to eat all
> raw. In fact it may very, very conceivably, make life much more difficult.
> Especially if there is a possibility that one is malnourished to begin
> with.

You obviously have no experience here whatsoever..or were fasting with
other juices instead of simple water. Fasting does not make you
hungry (your presumption) for anything..if done properly it makes
you hungry for nothing. IOW, you wonder after a couple of weeks
why you ever ate at all. What it does do (if you do it properly)
is sharpen your senses to accept and enjoy tastes you have never
tasted before..or rejected before. This thus aids in converting
to raw. If somebody decides after a fast to eat the way they
did before then that is their own personal decision. The fast will
have at least resulted in a detox..which is always beneficial.
As to malnourished people...a two week fast will certainly help
them to detox their eating mistakes and is thus still healthier
than continuing to eat as before.

> > By eating high quality (i.e. organically
> > grown and not treated with any chemicals whatsoever) from the
> > start you quickly learn by taste alone to differentiate between
> > good and bad quality produce.
>
> Well, that and a refractometer. =:o
>
A refractometer is no substitute for the taste buds. If one
decides to "eat to live" rather than "living to eat"
then quality and taste are of utmost importance.

> > Many report that a switchover without
> > fasting can make you "backfire better than a retro-rocket". This is
> > because the bacterial flora in the intestines need quite a while to
> > adjust to the new foods. Fasting dramatically reduces the time needed
> > for the bacteria to adjust but you still may experience at least a
> > week or two of flatulence.
>
> The operative words here are "at least."
>
Our intestinal flora are not as fast at reorganizing and settling
down again as we would like. Some in some people are in better
shape than in others. The operative word is therefore "may".

> Realize that you are talking to a potentially VERY wide audience, with your
> statements here.
>
Oh...I didn't realise that so many people wanted to detox
and/or convert to raw.

> Realize also that every person's digestive system is different. You have no
> way of knowing what sort of digestive system might be lurking on this list,
> reading your statements, or what sort might look in the archives five years
> from now, and assume that because of your air of certainty you actually
> know enough to make a statement like that, that could directly impact their
> health.
>
If you wish to put it that way then I will make a blatant statement:
Nobody on this earth (except a person in the final stages of
starvation from any cause) will not benefit by fasting for two weeks
at the most on water only.

> Also realize that there are MANY people, the majority of people, in fact,
> for whom a 100% raw diet, whether coming after a fast or not, is VERY
> difficult, if not downright dangerous, because of the huge amount of fiber
> to which they are unaccustomed.
>
It may be difficult for some..but it is certainly not dangerous..
only beneficial..providing they consume quality (non-treated
organic) produce from reliable sources. The latter is often more
difficult than the actual decision to switch itself.

> There are also plenty of other reasons that make a raw diet either
> difficult, dangerous, impossible, or prohibitive. A raw diet is not for
> everybody, and a fast doesn't change that.
>
There is no person on this earth who will benefit more on a cooked
rather than a raw diet. This even includes meat free of parasites
and antibiotics etc..

> > The best advice here is "do not attempt
> > to eat any of the veggies that you used to cook raw" (with the
> > exception of most root veggies other than potatoes).
>
> What? Was there a typo in this, or am I missing something?
>
No typo. Many "normal" cooked veggies such as beans, seeds and
grains, potatoes etc. are toxic or extremely hard on the digestion if
eaten raw. A true raw diet is not merely eating all those veggies
that you used to buy in the supermarket raw...in fact far from
it. Maybe this is where some of the confusion lies.

Best regards,

Alan