Jeepers! The server goes down for a bit and all hell breaks loose. ;) Tom's
reviewing cartoons; Dariusz is scarfing chocolate bars; Jean-Louis is
eating cooked cabbage! What next? I _love_ it all. =:O ;)

Anyway, I'll be watching for Pinky and the Brain, Tom. Thanks!

And Dariusz, heed everyone's advice on bulimea, eh? If you want veggies to
be supreme, you might want to read up on living fooders stuff which Tom has
shared so much of. That is probably the highest veggie% branch of raw
foodism--and it seems to have a better track record than most, both in
health and not flipping out into raw la-la land.

JL, thanks for sharing your latest...

> 1) For some time, although I didn't want to admit it, there was a sort
> of pride of being able to eat 100% raw, "pure", not having cravings, etc.
> But I realize

That pride is a strange thing, no? I first recognized it in other 100%
folks before I confronted it in myself! So few folks ever "succeed" on an
all-raw diet (instincto or otherwise) that special status is given to those
who do it longer-term. Instead of the exceptions (100% rawists) proving the
rule (raw foods are godly), it probably should be another rule (don't
become raw obsessional) proving the exception (100% rawists are usually
strange birds).

Now you have to watch out for Pride #2: being a formerly all-raw person who
came back from the edge! ;)

> 3) Because of the way I eat (sequential mono-eating), the amount of
>vegetables, and especially of leafy greens, is too small. It had long been a
>frustration for me that most of the vegetables on the produce shelf of the grocery are
>inedible.

Yet you seemed to be able to limit your fruit intake, no? I sometimes
wondered how you would get satisfied if your fruit was limited, veggies
were unattractive, and RAF was of relatively poor grocery store quality.
But you sound like you're not a big eater anyway (unlike me).

>I find that the most "natural supplement" is... cooked food.

Interesting perspective.

> So, 10 days ago, I began adding some cooked cabbage. As I treat it as a
>supplement, I only cooked on average 2 or 3 leaves/day, in water at
>sub-boiling temperature (maybe 80-90 C), for 2 minutes. They were still very crunchy
>afterwards, and, despite not stinging my tongue anymore, had "stops":
>some days, they really tasted delightful (one has to be instincto to
>appreciate simply boiled vegetables like that ;-) )

Ha! Yeah, I know what you mean! The simple pleasures of a recovering
instincto...I remember wrapping a cherry tomato in some romaine and
oohing/aahing like a gourmet on steroids...

> Incidentally, a skin problem near my left eyelid that I have had for
>several months [I don't know the name; it's white, dry, a bit flaky and
>slightly itchy; perhaps a fungus??] began to recede on the *first* day, and has almost
>disappeared now. It may be a coincidence, but when I replaced cabbage by
>kale for 2 days last week, it came back... It seems plausible to me that
>after 1 year of more or less instinctive eating, my body had become
>slightly deficient in something that is present in cabbage and that my
>body can't metabolize in its raw form...

And before your experiment, you would be attracted enough to at least the
idea of cabbage to buy it even though you knew it would sit for a month in
the fridge. Perhaps you somehow knew that you needed cabbage, but didn't
know you needed it un-raw? Probably a stretch, but interesting nevertheless.

I remember a similar recession of some scaly skin on my shin when I had
some steamed broccoli. That does turn one's head around, no? I haven't had
any cooked veggies for a few months now (and the scaliness is back)--maybe
I should try some again...

> I think I will continue to experiment, possibly with other vegetables
>that I can't eat raw (kale, collards...?), as a kind of supplement (about
>3% of my diet).

We played around with other greens, but cauliflour and broccoli were tops
as I remember it. Melisa dug zuchini and okra as well at times, neither of
which held any appeal to me, cooked or raw. I hope you keep the list
updated on your experimenting.

If Peter's idea about needing _some_ amount of cooked because of our
evolutionary heritage has any merit, perhaps it is just a tiny, non-zero
percent. ;)

Cheers,
Kirt

Secola  /\  Nieft
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