Ellie:
>IMO people who eat raw food (cleansing diets)are having more detox crises
in >the nervous system than others and therefore exhibit more
>symtpoms of emotional illness while they are detoxing. Emotions are
>stored as endogenous substances in the neruons of the limbic system.
>Symptoms of emotional illness are detox crises. Eventually those symptoms

Deborah:
>If your compelling hypothesis is true, then wouldn't we find those
>following raw diets for the longest periods of time to be the most
>limbically detoxified, and therefore the most emotionally healthy?  I0
>personally have not found that to be true in my encounters...

Hm. My experience with myself shows, that whenever I feel angry or
emotionally disbalanced I do the following: As soon as I recognize it (this
is the hardest job; you have to be very analytical and careful with yourself)
I ask myself: is there a reason for this? Did anybody hurt you? Are there
things that didn't go as you wanted?
If the answer to these questions is no, I go for my Cassia. It works always,
mostly within 5-20 minutes (!) I feel myself relaxing, my thoughts become
clearer, I am not upset anymore and so on. Mental balance improves nearly
immediately.

I think that Deborah's conclusion could be right. At least among the
instinctos I know, I find that those who were following instinctive nutri-
tion for the longest time are the best balanced, bodily and mentally.
But it's difficult to generalize this because the quality of the food
supply is so important and most people get the financial stop. ;-) In fact
the instinctos who can't afford the best supply seem to fight smaller or
bigger intoxifications nearly permanently and this affects their mental
balance of course. Also there are other important factors which might be
undiscovered yet. Our local instincto group found out, that an intoxifi-
cation by dental amalgam can make your instincts go to hell for years
if left untreated. This is, why I inquisitively asked Zephyr for the
materials used for his teeth.

A special observation: Beginners with instincto having the first big
improvements in their health often feel that they have to tell all others
now what they discovered. Our local instincto group calls it the
missionary phase. I think it applies to beginners with NH, veganism,
etc. also. In this phase people aren't balanced enough and don't know
enough to speak carefully about their nutrition and cause a lot of
trouble to all the others that surround them. I have been through that
phase too.
People in the missionary phase mostly do a bad job when trying to con-
vince others of their view. Almost always they are too unsure in
their knowledge because it's new to them also. Therefore they can't
argue thoroughly and transmit their unsureness to the people they
want to convince (resulting in convincing noone or even make others
think, that this strange nutrition is something to keep hands off.)

Ellie:
>Thank you. I am currently publishing a paper in a psych journal that has
>to do with toxicosis in the brain--very little to do with nutrition--but
>with toxicosis as a result of the suppression of emotions. But I am very
>interested in anything to do with neurotransmission. If you have a source
>of this finding about glutathione, I'd be very interested in reading
>about it. By the way, I believe that this toxicosis can interfere with
>the practice eating instinctively, and that it probably affects smell,
>taste, etc. and contributes as well to psychosomatic disease.

Pat:
>You really ought to shout "FIRE" before tossing such incendiary material
>into the middle of such a group as "instincto's"!!! Only fair thing to do....

It seems there was some trouble about this statement of Pat. Well, I only
could laugh about it. It should be allowed to toss such material
into instincto groups, NH groups, vegetarian groups etc. Every group
could learn something and the more we know, the easier our successors will
adapt to an improved nutrition.
Knowing of the points, Ellie brought up, will be useful in understanding
the behaviour of people that are turning to a hypotoxic diet.

Conclusions for me: If toxicosis interferes with smell and taste it
might be a good idea to consider some psychological and mental work also
when turning to a detoxifying nutrition. Nutrition can't heal all wounds
and I have never been lucky with the whole weight put on nutritional
issues. Instinctive nutrition is more than eating.
I consider meditation, mental work, awareness and a mentally balanced
lifestyle as nearly as important as nutrition. Nutrition is the basis
but do you want to stay at the basis for the rest of your life?
Are you living for eating or are you living to reach for the sense of life
(if you have found one)? Hey Bodhi, come out of your hole and make
some inspiring statement here! :-)
Personally I think I have found a sense of life at least for me and
nutrition is an important factor for reaching it. And the rest of the
job must be done using my brain.
(By the way: I damn those ugly farmers that fed their cattle with RAF/CAF.
I really would like to get some raw beef brain and try it! Maybe it could
detox a lot out of my brain. :-))

Tom:
>The people who are less than 100% raw, seem to have less mental problems
>than the 100% group. I am not 100% raw - I eat steamed veggies on occasion.
>I tell people this because some of the "100% raw" people display very
>poor mental health, and I don't want people to associate me with the
>"crazies".

>Of course, "100% raw" people are rare as so many of us occasionally indulge
>in cooked or processed food.=20

>Is it possible to be 100% raw and be mentally/emotionally healthy? In theory,
>yes. In practice, it seems rare. The poor mental health of the raw zealots
>contradicts their claims that their diet gives "perfect" health.

Hm. Nearly nobody seems to use Cassia. It could help a lot to overcome
detox crisis, bodily and mental ones. Also if one doesn't use it, the whole
process of moving to a hypotoxic diet lasts much longer. Therefore it may
happen that a new diet gives you a bad mental balance for    y e a r s  -
not too funny for your environment.

Yes, I think it is possible to be 100% raw and mentally/emotionally
healthy. But there will be a lot of discipline necessary in order to achieve this.
And discipline sounds so bad together with especially instinctive
nutrition. We thought we would live entirely steered by our instincts, our
feelings, our inner needs. And now, discipline? Neo-cortex?
Yes. We have brought ourselves into a heavy toxified state with our neo-
cortex. This did never happen in such an amount in ancient times. Now we
have to pull ourselves out of the trap again with our big brain.
Let's do it!

Best raw and instinctive wishes,

Stefan