Thanks to Jerry for raising some interesting points. My comments
on some of them follow.

Jerry Story <[log in to unmask]>:
>Then (V and R and P) will be the set of all diets that are vegan, raw, and
>nutritionally perfect.
>
>And (V and R and -P) will be the set of all diets that are vegan, raw, and
>not nutritionally perfect.
>
>It has been proved (and I did not doubt) that (V and R and -P) has some
>members and is not a null set.
>
>The question is:  How do we go from that to prove that (V and R and P) is a
>null set?   This seems to be the logic of most of the raw vegan nutritional
>disaster stories that we hear.
>
>How does one go from "this raw vegan diet is bad" and "that raw vegan diet
>is bad" to "all
>raw vegan diets are bad"?

In my opinion and experience --
Currently the set of successful, healthy (body and mind) long-term 100%
raw vegans is an empty set. (There are a handful of 90+% raw vegans
who are healthy in body and mind, long-term.) I know there are people
claiming to be in the 100% set. All the ones I know about are at
least one of the following:

a) not as raw as they claim (even some of the big names/gurus are not
as raw as they claim),
b) not as vegan/pure as they claim,
c) are decidedly mentally UNhealthy (this point is obvious, given the
negative behavior paterns of many raw "gurus" and pseudoscience promoters),
d) lack credibility -- examples: claim to live on 500 calories of food
a day; raw self-proclaimed "science experts" who lack credentials,
promote pseudoscience, and engage in blatant scientific fraud, etc.

What I want to see is a large group of credible long-term healthy
100% raw vegans (of both genders, in a wide range of ages). This would
serve as "proof of concept".

PS an interesting question: why so some do OK long-term on 90+% raw
vegan, but not 100%? I'm not sure, but hypothesize that the 10% allows
intake of foods with nutrients that are low bioavailability in raw,
and also avoids the intense obsession with food one sees in
those for whom 100% raw has become a pseudoreligion. 90% allows
slack, making the diet lower stress.

>What I would like to see is enough detailed information about the diet in
>question so that I can run it thru DMAK to find out how much of each
>nutrient it has, and perhaps some recommendations for improvement.

That a diet works on paper does not mean it works in the real world.
Most on-paper analyses do not consider bioavailability.

>(I'm not strict vegan. I eat food of animal origin from time to time, if I
>seem to feel the need.  I am not religious about vegan or about anti-vegan.
> I have no strong opinion about the B12 question, but I choose to not take
>an unnecessary and possibly irreversible risk.)

Glad to hear that you are not dogmatic/rigid.

Thanks again for your post/questions.

Tom Billings