Did Ellie write:
>>Do you eat any sprouted beans?

No.

Ellie:
>Maybe I am not cleaned out enough, but I can't tell if I have digested
>something or not. Could you go into some details about that. How long it
>takes for juicy fruits to go through and how do you know if they are
>digested partially or not at all, or fully? Same question for avacodos
>and fish or meat. If you have veggies with protein, how do you know what
>is or isn't digested if it is mixed.

Nothing very subtle, Ellie, and certainly not a matter of you not being
cleaned out. :0 ;) It's called the squirts and _anyone_ knows when they
have it. ;) The basic idea is that when I eat protein/fat is comes out the
other end as well-formed stools. When I eat too long a stretch of
fruit/veggies (more than 3 or 4 days) and then have cassia there is a
tendency to loose unformed stools in the following days until I have a meal
of protein/fat. Not always, but more than occasionally in the last year or
so. The loose stools contain undigested fruit/veggies. At it's worst it is
watery diarrhea with perfectlly recognizable bits of food. Cassia doesn't
seem to have the same effect/tendancy when eating more concentrated animal
foods (or avos).

>What do you think of Edward Howell's theory that the need for uncooked
>food is because of the enzymes in food that digest themselves, and thus
>spare our own enzymes? Do you think you might be more adapted to slightly
>cooked meat and veggies than to raw?

There is limited evidence that enzymes survive digestion though they may be
important in pre-digestion in the stomach before the bodies digestive
juices take over (if Howell is right about his description of the
chambering/layering going on in the stomach). In general, I suspect the
predigestion which takes place in the ageing/ripening process _outside_ the
body (ie when meat/seafood ages by hanging or drying, or the parallel of
fruit ripening on the counter or on the tree) is more important in sparing
the body a heavier burden of digestion. That may be the simplest reason why
a ripe banana or aged mackeral are so much more tasty to most folks than a
green banana or fresh mackeral. In the case of a banana the complex carbs
are broken down into simple sugars and in mackeral the oils are broke down
into fatty acids, the proteins into aminos (This is total conjecture since
I have never seen such an analysis of fresh vs aged mackeral.)

The above seems to agree with Howell on all points except that of enzymes
surviving digestion (which is probably not happening or not much).

>Do you think you might be more adapted to slightly
>cooked meat and veggies than to raw?

Perhaps, especially if I compare slightly cooked meats to fresh (not aged)
meats. Especially as regards fats. Cooked fat on, say, top sirloin tastes
so very simliar to aged fat of the same cut that I have to wonder what
similarities they have nutritionally. However, the meat that I have eaten
cooked was "hung meat" (between 2-4 weeks in the butchers cooler), very
tender and essentially aged. The fat, however, was still hard before
cooking, whereas when aged at room temperature the fat gets softer and
tastes like the melted fat in lighty cooked meat). It is hard for me to
compare raw aged meat with rare aged meat since I _can_ eat rare meat for
several days in a row with great results whereas I can _not_ eat raw aged
meat for more than a couple days in a row. I'm not sure what it all means,
but have found that rare aged meat is as easily digested (perhaps even more
so) than aged raw meat. I also found that if I accidently over-cooked my
meat it was NOT so easily digested. Excessive browning (blackening really,
or just plain burnt) gave me a "hangover" the next morning everytime
(Melisa too). And even if it wasn't blackened, but the inside wasn't
red-raw (or at least pink) I got a heavier digestion and sometimes a bit
sweaty after an hour or so.

>How is that rare meat affecting you. Do you crave it? I
>look forward to your posts about this.

The biggest effect of the weeks eating rare aged meat was that there was no
blood sugar variance whatsoever. Perhaps I was in ketosis. Before this low
carb high fat/protein experiment I was probably only in ketosis when
fasting and it was mildly unpleasant (coated tongue, bad breath, weaker)
but on the low carb diet I had no ketosis syptoms at all--except
significantly more strength, felt "lighter", more energy, more alertness,
better overall mood, increased concentration, more perfect stools, less
need for sleep, etc. My skin remained clear and of fine tone. I could run
effortlessly, push ups were easier,a particular steep hill I often biked up
was effortless, where I had to push it a bit before. Keep in mind that I
wasn't any kind of "weakling" before, but I felt even stronger on the very
low carb diet. Further, my body felt pleasantly "tighter" in general, more
muscle definition, clothes felt better (though I didn't lose any weight
really--maybe a couple pounds). Interestingly, during the move to Hawaii
and since I've been here living out of a duffle bag I have been eating
hardly anything but fruits and veggies, mostly papayas and avos really. But
the positives of the low carb diet weeks haven't diminished much at all
over the few weeks of a return to high carb diet. I miss exercising though
(I just pulled out my toe stitchs so it shouldn't be long now).

I don't _crave_ meat but I do look forward to getting a longterm rental and
being able to eat some more animal foods, both aged-raw and aged-rare. I
wonder if I won't end up enjoying a meat-only diet for a time in the
future--at intervals, almost like some people approach fasting, but instead
of "cleaning out" or detoxing which people fast for, I would probably find
the low carb (more or less a fast _from_ fruit) very _strengthening_.
Perhaps I will end up simply having days of fruit-only when I've had my
fill of animal foods and veggies, or maybe maybe the reverse. It is seeming
to me that my body has two modes: high carb and low carb (and not so much a
medium-carb mode). Both are pleasant, but I'm thinking I may do best having
separate days of fruit (high carb) vs animal foods/veggies (low carb) as
opposed to fruit at lunch and animal foods/veggies at dinner. I might have
a day or three or more of meat/veggies and then a day or more of fruit
instead of eating all classes of food in a single day. This makes sense to
me intellectually as well since I can easily imagine our ancestors eating
lots of fruit when a ripe tree was encountered and eating lots of meat when
they downed a woolly mammoth ;) Who knows how it will go for me in the long
term? Not I ;)

Melisa, too, was delighted with the rare meat and ate large portions the
first few days (8-14 oz) and would say she _could_ eat more. Then after a
few days of that her attraction to the rare meat fell off (mine didn't
though ;)). Then she would have smaller portions (6-8 oz) every other
couple days. Now she might have it once a week. Of course, she is pregnant
and usually knows what food she is after without much difficulty. We were
both most interested in the fattiest cuts--kinda like meat flavored fat
instead of meat with a little fat ;) It's hard to find meat that isn't
trimmed of its delightful fat these days...

In any case, the idea that cooked meat (or cooked veggies for that matter)
would be "addicting" has certainly not come true for us. But, again, Melisa
and I rarely have the same food attractions. We are all very different
individuals with different histories and genetics and I assume that
everyone would get individual results/responses to experimenting with
cooked veggies and meat after a time on an all-raw regime. I still consider
raw food better than slightly-cooked food (though I'm not sure how rational
that is at this point for me ;)) and maybe I'm just "getting away" with all
this cooking because I had over eight strictly raw years--but still one
would think that if cooked was so bad I would have had _some_ sort of
negative symptom eating so much seared meat. About the only thing
"negative" I can come up with is that I sweated more when I exercised on
the low carb diet (and enjoyed much more water than when eating fruit). Not
exactly damning symptoms to my mind ;)

FWIW, Melisa tried some yogurt here (no source for raw dairy here yet and
she was still enjoying the raw kefer a couple times a weeks while we were
in San Marcos, and proably will some more as she is returning to San Marcos
for a couple weeks to tie up loose ends before returning permanently to
Hawaii). It was made from pausturized whole milk--she didn't enjoy it, ate
little. She enjoys soft-boiled eggs once in a while too. Whatever instinct
is, I doubt that it only functions with raw food. And perhaps if one eats
_only_ raw, our biological instincts become warped--at least if we are
adapted to the need for some cooked food. It is fairly easy for me to
imagine an evolutionary "bottle-neck" where our species had to resort to
cooked food during times of ice-age induced scarcity (especially those of
us of European heritage). Perhaps such a bottle-neck marked our genes. (I
tend to think of the aqautic ape theory in this light as well--where a
early coastal homonid group may have evolved radically on seafoods and
those genes were "keepers"--especially the bigger brain--and have marked us
with a genetic need for at least some seafoods for optimal health.)

I don't know, but I don't say I'm an instincto who eats salads anymore. I
say I follow a mostly raw paleolithic diet, or I would if anyone ever asked
;)

Sorry this is so long but Melisa is watching the ding dang all night
coverage of Di's funeral and I am avoiding puking my guts out by
concentrating on this post instead. She just informed me that the baby
kicked her and I told her, of course, that the bambino was as sick of the
coverage as I was...;)

Cheers,
Kirt