I believe that the anti-fruitarianism comments on this list are made to warn
possible budding-fruit**ers that its a slippery and most likely dangerous
slope to tread.  And sometimes there comes someone who is already convinced
that fruit***ism works.  This is different from taking an approach of "x
says that it works, I wonder if it would work for me..."; keeping an open
mind about it should prevent pro- arguments when there is literally no
actual evidence to someone "having a look".

The only person who truly knows that fruit-ism works (and I believe it does
not work - based on my own experience and on nuturitional theory) is the one
who has lived that way honestly and truly for several years and who
maintains a reasonable standard of health, fitness and vitality (and teeth
!).  This is a person with evidence.

The fact that this honest person speaks about his experience is not in
itself evidence of the viability of fruit***ism:  how is the listener to
know that he is honest or not?  If there were a great number of people
saying it, that would be a better indicator (though still not evidence).

The fact is that I know of only one other "diet" which has fewer supporters,
and that is "breatharianism" (is that the right word?).  In this regard, why
is it that so many people have difficulty with this diet?  Its not as though
there was any shortage of starving people on Earth, espescially in times of
famine.  And the number of anorexics too.  [ I am including this here
because I find it amazing that anyone would try to give this idea
credibility and still be 'revered' - this must show something about human
nature, I guess ! ]

Now, I have no problem with the discussion about fruit***ism so far : it has
resulted in some interesting spin-offs.
What I take offense at is when a new-comer arrives to this list with some
question about health, only to be responded to by a slightly-less-new-comer
who gives them poor advice that few on the list would support.  Sure, they
say that there is freedom of speech but what happens is that
        1       an erroneous idea of the list is perpretated
        2       its necessary for the anti-arguments to be fronted again

Maybe, to pre-emt this, the welcome message to the new subscriber could make
a brief "policy-statement".  A few guidelines might be possible, though
these might be harder to put together.

So today I will start another thread "Raw Food Diet guidelines": lets see
what develops.

Lynton