David:
>While we're still on the subject of dairy, I have noticed that my cat who
>for the last 3 of his 4 years has eaten only raw, organic beef and a little
>thawed out, frozen, organic peas or corn, is VERY attracted to a salt-free,
>raw, feta-style goat cheese that I eat sometimes. I'm having a tough time
>accounting for this attraction by appealing to his instincts, although
>perhaps there is a component of the cheese (the fat, perhaps, although can
>fats be "foreign" like proteins) that is an analogue to some "original"
>feline food. Whaddya think?

>BTW, my cat also very much enjoys raw corn-on-the-cob - he and I eat it
>together, he on one side of the cob and I on the other.
>
>I also learned recently that in the 1940's in England, some variety of bird
>"learned" how to peck at the tops of un-opened, freshly delivered milk
>bottles that had been deposited on doorsteps so as to get at the layer of
>cream on the top. This behavior too seems hard to account for by appealing
>to instincts.

I'm not sure I understand your confusion, David. "Instinct" as used by
instincto-therapy refers to sensory (smell and taste) attraction regardless
of visual cues and other neo-cortical "input". If a food has an attractive
smell and taste (or even simply an "interesting" smell and taste) why
shouldn't your cat be attracted? All sorts of "wild" animals are attracted
to to food remnants in garbage dumps, both raw and denatured. The trouble
is perhaps not so much "accounting for the attraction as a function of
instinct" as much as it is deciding if a food is usefully capable of
interacting with one's smell and taste in a health-giving way.

Cheese (and other dairy) may be too denatured to be eaten instinctively for
most people. Perhaps for cats as well. Nevertheless, if you cat has eaten
only beef (and no organs) it may be on the prowl for many important
nutrients (including fats) which may be why she is so very attracted to raw
cheese. Or maybe cheese is so attractive because it is so denatured. Either
way there is no need to "account" for the attraction. Sour cream and onion
flavored potato chips are often attractive to folks and critters, no?

I would not be surprised if birds enjoy (and thrive) on raw cream.
Conversely, I would not be surprised if it messed them up because the fat
was not "properly digestable". In the former case instinct is useful in
interaction with a "natural" food, and in the latter case it fails in
interaction with an "unnatural food", one that birds never before had much
access to before human neo-cortical manipulation. In other words, the
question isn't really why would a bird's be attracted to raw cream, but
whether or not the attraction is useful. The bird is in no position to
inhibit its attraction, whereas humans are. Perhaps there is justice in
this since the raw cream wouldn't be floating on top of the bottle if not
for our neo-cortical inhibition.

Defining the set of useful foods is confused by many factors, including the
great differences between the wild paleolithic foods we evolved consuming
and the foods available to us today; the great individual variation in
relish, tolerance, and utility of even high quality raw foods and even more
so with "borderline raw foods" such raw dairy, fermentated concoctions,
"live" supplements, etc.; the generations of denatured food consumption of
our ancestors and the resultant, albeit incomppletel, natural selection of
our genetics; and especially the doule-edged sword of neo-cortical
intervetion--without which we would be unable to repress our attraction to
denatured foods (whose denaturation is also directly attributable to our
neo-cortex), but also without which we would be unable to secure much
quality raw foods in modern circumstances.

It is understandable that we want to know/define the edge of the set of
useful instincto raw foods as distinct from un-useful denatured foods, and
know it _before_hand_. But this expectation may be unrealistic. Instincto
purists have decided to "err on the side of conservativism" and restrict
most every form of denaturing. While this is admirable intellectually, it
probably contributes in large part to the failure of most people to eat
pure instincto for a lifetime. But any alternative seems frought with the
possiblity of severe problems (UNLESS the "eat till the stop" proposition
is tossed out!)

Indeed, if we were to honestly avoid "foods resulting from great
breeding/hybridization" where would any instincto be today. For all the
rampaging instinctos do about wheat (and dairy) they seem to almost be
ignoring the rest of our fresh, raw, perhaps even organic, but
_artificially_selected food supply. The new strains of sweet corn are
delightful but are they "too" artifically-selected? It would be an
interesting intellectual debate as to which is more denatured: a mussel
from polluted coastal waters, a fresh organic cob of "Pearl" white sweet
corn, or freshly churned butter made from the milk of a strictly pastured
cow. In the end, I care most about _utility_ not whether a food (or class
of food) is on the instincto no-no list. Does it work for people? That is
the question.

I suspect that thanks to recombinant genetics we will see more extremely
attractive foods (like new sweet corn and the already oversweet fruits)
resulting. Since the whole "taste change as quantity regulator" is of such
debatable utility, I would put the following scenario/question forward to
instinctos:

A newly-bred food, X, is now available. It is wildly attractive, akin to
durian in pleasure. Some instinctos (Group A) find it has no taste change
to speak of, some find mild/late taste changes (Group B), and a very few
(say 2%--Group C) find it has a reliable taste change. Should Group A eat X
but eat only neo-cortically fixed amounts? If Group A does so, and finds it
healthly to do so, are they any longer considered "instinctos"? If Group B
eats "too much" X by following their senses only, and finds it unhealthy to
do so, are they considered "stupid"? If Group C is highly vocal about how
they experience the "real stop" because they are 1] an instincto Guru, or
2] so very Pure, or 3] pay special attention to principles of instinctive
LIFE, etc. and finds it healthy to do so, is Group C "obnoxious"?

Cheers,
Kirt