Tom Billings writes:

> Your questions are in fact answered -- with citations -- on Beyond
> Veg.  Read more - your questions will be answered.  :-)

Mike Kinnaird responds:

>There's so much of it though Tom and it's heavy going. Have you written any
>books? :) I do intend to look into youe site deeply in the fullness of
time.
>I'm serious about the book because reading at the computer is not great.
[snip...]
>It seems to me that we need a lot of scientific study on these various
diets
>in practice in the short and long term but I wont hold my breath.

I'd like to make an observation here about the general criticism of
the
outlook/approach on the Beyond Veg site that "things shouldn't have to
be
that complex." This is a criticism I've thought hard about more than
once,
because one thing we have tried to do with the site is make clarity in
the
editing approach a primary objective given the details we've chosen to
cover. But frankly, from what I can see, the criticism is often just a
way
of psychologically deflecting the arguments made, and in the main, I
find I
can't buy most of it.

Because clearly, actually, if one observes the ongoing conversations
about
dietary issues on email lists and web BBS's devoted to rawism, nobody
likes
to talk so endlessly in so much detail about food issues as do
raw-foodists. It's just that much of the time it's not scientific-type
or
research-based detail. Or it's not the same kind of relentless digging
into
the psychological and logical linchpins behind why we believe what we
believe--which are almost always emotionally uncomfortable things to
look
at, and involve questions of what we can and can't be certain of in
life.
It's the questions of uncertainty and the consideration that "maybe I
don't
or can't know as much of this for sure as I thought" rather than
complexity
that I think stir up the actual reactions and reluctance to delve into
thinking about many of the issues covered.

As far as simplicity vs. complexity of detail goes, though, certainly
the
ideals and philosophy and principles behind rawism are simple. But
what is
overlooked is the complexity involved at an entirely different level:
how
one is then forced into never-ending, detailed explanations to account
for
the many long-term failures on such an "ideal" diet, and (a) why they
don't
count against the diet, (b) why they can be ignored, (c) why they mean
almost the opposite of what it would appear they do on the face of it,
(d)
why they demonstrate rather than refute the principles behind the
diet, (e)
how the very few exceptions of long-term success are not really
exceptions
but instead the ideal *everyone* can achieve; and on and on. Endless
contortions and complexities to explain away the obvious. They only
seem
simple because they are so familiar.

The approach on the Beyond Veg website is not that much more or less
detailed, it's just different, and the simplicity/complexity are in
different areas. To see what is simple about it, though, requires a
reorientation of one's underlying mental stance or "headset." It is
quite
simple for example, if one takes the blinders of overidealism off, to
observe that 100% raw diets work long-term for only a very few, and
75%+
fruitarian diets work for virtually no one long-term. It is likewise
simple
to observe that people are different in their responses to diet,
sometimes
considerably so, and thus the idea that there is one ideal diet is
questionable. It is a bit more difficult, but still relatively simple
to
observe that people are often more interested in the philosophy behind
things than the results they actually get. That they like to interpret
results according to their philosophies rather than use discordance
between
results and philosophy to question the latter.

It is also obvious in this approach that we often can't be very
certain
about any particular detail. It is this uncertainty that generates the
complexities here and the necessary research. But my take is that it
is
much better to be uncertain and aware of the details that make us
cognizant
of where the uncertainty lies, than to live in unawareness of some of
the
obvious things here which are that most people simply don't succeed
long-term on total raw or 75%+ fruit diets and run considerable risk
of
damaging their health of they pigheadedly persist past the point where
things start going south on them.

What is complex is to understand and explain the specific reasons why
or
whether a so-called ideal diet does/doesn't exist (unless you are
willing
to just say "people are different" and leave it at that) and all the
scientific or research-based evidence to truly answer the question.
And
that's another conflict here: the rawist ideal wants to be simple, but
to
have actual bona fide evidence that is scientifically verifiable you
have
to embrace scientific methods which involve detailed research. That's
of
course *not* very simple because it has to be concerned with the
actual
biology and anthropology and evolution/genetics and verifiable
clinical
results of things, none of which are or can be satisfied with being
simple
philosophies (simplistic or oversimplistic would be more accurate)
like
rawism is.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>