Hi Carol,

> Kirt:
> > Cooked vegans appear to last longer before they experience trouble.
>
> I've heard this said many times, but -- and I know I've asked
> this before just recently -- do you think it's by virtue of the
> cooking itself, or do you think that the difference lies in the
> different food choices people make when they're eating raw foods
> as opposed to cooked ones?  I'd really like to hear more people's
> thoughts on this question.  I think it's an important one.
>

I suspect it is not the cooking per se, but the fact that some of the cooked
foods such as grains and beans, for all their problems, do have some
strengthening and sustaining characteristics that are lacking in the bulk of
the vegan raw-food diet, especially if that bulk is in the form of fruit. Of
course I can't prove this.

I had a couple of long-term cooked-food vegan cyber-friends from my days in
the Compuserve NATMED forum - one I still correspond with.  Both persons I'm
thinking of (three, including ones husband) had a large emphasis on
whole-grains and beans in their diets (and little fruit); because of such a
heavy intake of these foods that do have significant protein, more-so than
most vegetable matter, I suspect it may have staved off deficiencies for
awhile. Both of them (I'm not sure about the husband - I just know he is now
having a very rough time of it) appeared to follow the pattern of very
substantial improvement initially on the diet but increasing health problems
over the long term. They also were taking piles of supplements to help out
as well.

I would not necessarily implicate the diet in these individual's problems
(considering if a person had major health problems to start with before
changing a diet, it would suggest a weak constitution or poor genetics where
any diet may be ineffective for complete healing in some cases). But their
experiences do not make the case for cooked-food veganism to be a potent
long-term health-promoting diet, only perhaps that the long-term decline is
slower or takes longer that the typical raw-food vegan diet.

I only recall one (temporary) raw-food vegan joining NATMED; this poor
fellow, starting out in normal health according to him, developed terrible
problems in 3 - 6 months, losing a great deal of weight and developing
severe abdominal problems. He actually influenced me away from mostly-raw
for awhile. But I've learned a lot more since then.

In contrast to the vegans, NATMED had a number of people who did just
'great' on low-carb mostly cooked in terms of reversing health problems and
didn't seem to relapse (not true paleo as far as I could tell, or maybe the
idea wasn't fashionable around there. In any case the quality of meat was
not discussed too often).

Boy, there are a lot of great threads in those archives  - I've got megs of
files on a hard disk full of them (its too bad they don't live in the
Websphere).


Regards, Paul