> David Mayne wrote:
>
> > As to whether or not the book "Raw Eating" is a classic or a dud,
> > well, one man's trash/treasure cliche fits the bill. I found it to
> > be full of emotional rhetoric proclamations and little substantive
> > content...
Rex:
>
> Your words, and the 'Next in Topic' message by Peter, at the archive link you
> referenced, answered my questions fairly well...
>
[From the archives]
> David Mayne:
> >Good question! Peter, Kirt ?
>
> Peter:
> Since the two books are almost identical is this a trick question? ;-) The
> original is not quite as bad as the newer NFL version, not as aggressive
> and obnoxious in its tone and does generate some strength and credibility
> from the fact is that it is based on the author's years of experimenting on
> himself, his family and his clients with a raw, vegan diet - not plagiarism.

OK, Rex, the above reference occurred, what, over a year ago ?
Hints of suspected insincerity aside, would a few quotations from
the "Raw Eating" help, like a caption on the cover, under a picture
of A.T.  Hovannessian's daughter:

"THE FIRST RAW-EATER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, TEN-YEAR OLD AHAHIT,
ATERHOV'S DAUGHTER, WHO HAS NEVER CONSUMED A SINGLE MORSEL, OF COOKED
OR OTHER DEGENERATED FOOD IN HERE LIFE."

Or perhaps, some of the table of contents will shed some light here:

"How I conceived the idea of raw-eating   page 7"
[...]
"The cancer cell is the direct offspring of degenerated food page 11"
[...]
"Addiction to cooked food is the most dangerous of all vices page 13"
[...]
"Cooked-eating and drug therapy are leading the human race to utter
annihiliation page 22"
[...]
"All the evil habits and beastly inclinations of man are a result of
cooked-eating page 42"

David:
And, perhaps a few scattered tidbits, found in the sparse but rather
tedious text:

"Provided that all its needs are satisfied by the laws of nature, the
human organism, which is the most perfect organism in the animal kingdom,
can live in excellent health from a minimum of 150 years to a maximum
of 200-250 years." page 9

"It is true that by the laws of evolution our organism tries to adapt
itself to the food it receives, but not in the way that some imagine."
page 11

David:
Interesting to note that Hovannessan mentions evolution several times
in it's usual context - I guess this term did not carry on in the
NFL tradition with their infamous essay on evolution...

"The greatest mistake of biologists who are addicted to cooked food
is their short-sightedness. They close their eyes to thos harms that
appear small and do not forsee the serious consequences that sooner
or later result from seemingly negligible causes." page 16

"Diseases are the products of the degeneration of foodstuffs; they
can only be conquered, therefore, by the correction of our diet."
page 21

"In the opinion of short-sighted people raw-eating is tantamount to
a return to the primitive life of the prehistoric man. In point of
fact there is no greater disgrace to civilization than the operations
of cooking and refining. The raw-eater merely forgoes the miseries
caused by the so-called diseases of civilization and refuses to
turn technical progress bestowed upon him by civilization into a means
of destroying the purity of the human raw materials. Otherwise, he
does not forgo the convenience of speaking by telephone, travelling
by air or keeping his fruit fresh in his refrigerator." page 21

David:

Perhaps I can be permitted to extrapolate on the last quote -
we don't have to forgo the convenience of the radiation emmitting
from our 17" computer monitor reading and writing about the
necessity for raw-eating. (-:

I won't go any further with this now, the point being that I find
many proclamations made with such importance - "I conceived the
idea of raw-eating" - "FIRST RAW-EATER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY"
- "All the evil habits and beastly inclinations of man..." -
but very shallow with respect to any noteworthy backing.
Hovannessian does offer a few antedotes spread here and
there, but very little more than his unsupported claims
made succinct from the air of a pounding chest.

That is not to say that the book is completely without merit;
it certainly may appeal to those who are comfortable viewing
aspects of the world in polar opposites, i.e. its either good
or evil, us versus them, all raw or nothing, etc. I personally
don't endorse being fanatical about any dietary preferences,
or, repetitive claims that blame all of our woes on a particular
source, but those are my preferences.

Regards,

David
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