Kirt:

> Jean-Louis! Your english is remarkable. Did you have a native english
> speaker do any editing? or was that all your own?

It was my own, but it took quite some time...

> I wonder if paleo-dieters would have the sensory sensitivity to discern the
> (admittedly theoretical) detox of grains and/or dairy. I'm interested in
> your view on body odors as it relates to detox. I found that my stools were
> NOT odorless when eating animal foods, even raw and instinctively selected.
> Whereas I did appear to approach a relatively odorless stool when on 90%+
> raw vegan diet (which I ate at times due to lack of animal food
> availability). Cooked foods do give both my wife and I much more
> discernable body odors and I can't help but wonder at a theoretical
> explanation.

I also notice that eating raw decreases the body odors, but that animal food
produces more odors than plant foods.

On a traditional cooked diet, I used to have a rather unpleasant odor
(particularly under the armpits) if I spent more than 4 days without having a
shower. But now, I haven't used any soap for several months, and usually a
little clear water is enough. Plant foods virtually give me no body odor, except
when I eat a large amount of nuts (and then the odor is recognizable). When I
eat cheese, my body smells like cheese (although not a strong odor). When I eat
raw meat, my perspiration has an odor that remotely reminds me of the odor I had
when fasting (is it simply the result of protein breakdown or of
detoxification?) As far as stools are concerned, I can't say they are odorless.
Not as unpleasant as on cooked food, but I would have to be very hungry to eat
them. But an unpleasant odor can also be caused by overeating and/or bad
combinations.

> Indeed, the whole issue of detox was subjectively "proved" to me when I
> quit smoking years ago. There was no doubt at all to me that my body was
> casting off tar etc which had accumulated during years of smoking, or that
> a series of colds I had were expelling crap from my lungs.

I don't doubt that cigarette is toxic (that tar accumulates in the lungs is a
well-known fact). Drugs are toxic too, of course. The question is whether the
same applies for cooked food.

> And later during my purists days of instincto, I would have odors (not just
> stools, but urine, ear wax, eyebrow sweat, etc.) that were dead ringers for
> various denatured foods eaten previously (processed cheese, "baco-bits",
> souffles, etc)--sometimes very vivid smells of foods I had eaten over a
> decade ago. And usually when fruits (esp "new" fruits) or honeies were
> extremely attractive.

I believe you, but have never experienced it myself.

> So anyway, you made no mention of the instincto bit about body odors being
> a clue to the nature of detox. What do you think?

FWIW, all animals have an odor (body and stools), humans are not an exception.
An unpleasant odor is not necessarily the proof that some bad stuff is being
detoxified. I guess it is usually produced by end-products of bacteria
metabolism (like in the case of bad breath). Now, why the bacteria thrive more
on "denatured food", I don't know.

Anyway, an odor is just an odor. More important is how you feel, rather than how
you smell...

> Instincto seems to have its troubles, but not so much deficiencies (as is
> so evident in raw vegan regimes) as misplaced idealism [...]

Your "deficiencies" is ambiguous here ;-)

> Many of the symptoms can be seen as signs of deficiency, but I do suspect
> that symptoms which throw off material such as colds, skin eruptions, etc.
> will be shown to have _some_ basis in detox--though certainly not 100% so.

Perhaps, but one of my points was to show that some symptoms are simply allergic
reactions. In the watermelon example, it may well be that the grain proteins
were gone a long time ago, but the immune system has still kept some memories of
that. Eating the watermelon triggers runny nose, etc., which is in a sense a
kind of detoxification, but the body is a priori throwing off watermelon
allergens, NOT old stuff.

> I agree. It appears to me that the medical model emphasizes the "causative
> agents" (bacteria, viruses, and lately genetics) to an un-useful extreme.
> Whereas most raw diet theories (including instincto) emphasize "terrain
> issues" to an un-useful extreme (ie, disease can not happen in a pure body
> etc). There is no need to choose one theoretical stance over the other, but
> perhaps only admit that both models have something to say about the reality
> of it.

Yes. Instincto ("all germs are beneficial") is even more extreme than NH ("germs
are innocuous") [AFAIK, no experiment has ever proved that a virus could be
useful in any way]. But at least, instincto has the merit of adopting an
evolutionary perspective, and bringing in the issue of foreign proteins. But
given the (relative) success of cooked Paleo diets, I see little evidence that
cooked food or meat are toxic.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
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