JL:
>they would lead to overeating too. Two days ago, I purchased some Zahidi
>dates (among others), from Orkos: they are supposed to be undenatured,
>and not as selected as the Deglet Noor. They tasted a bit like caramel
>candies I sometimes used to eat as a kid ("bonbons Krema"!). There did
>was an instinctive stop, which came sooner than with commercial dates,
>but only after nearly one pound, which I consider excessive (and expensive!
>8$ on dates at a sigle meal).

There is a lot more to dates than too much sugar. FWIW, Melisa and I both
had an initial attraction to lots of dates--it tapered off to relative
disinterest after a few months.

>4) About tolerances and addiction: it seems to be an important point
>that Burger doesn't treat in his book, except tolerance to tobacco,
>cooked food and cow's milk. But the most recent trends of instincto seem
>to be more concerned about tolerances to original foods, and meat in
>particular. How to handle that problem? What is tolerance? Is it a
>natural phenomenon, and does it contradict instincto theory?
>By definition, being tolerant to a food means that the instinctive stops
>have been (partially or totally) suppressed. Tolerances develop when the
>same food is too regularly eaten. The difference between becoming tolerant
>and removing a blockage to a particular food is that in the latter case,
>mechaisms of instinctive stop work correctly.
>I guess that animals do have temporary tolerances: it is a natural,
>and maybe necessary phenomenon, since when food becomes scarce, escept
>for one kind of food, not becoming tolerant to that food would cause
>useless suffering, and maybe undernutrition followed by death, since that
>food would become so unattractive that it could not be eaten at all. But
>while temporary tolerances are natural, permanent ones are not, and only
>humans can preserve food for months, eat bananas or dates every day,
>import fruits from the fiv continents. For animals, when the season is
>over, or wen all the ripe fruits in the few square miles they live have
>been eaten, they have to wait for a few months, so that they cannot
>remain addicted in the long run.

Interesting stuff. I had never heard of any "tolernance problems" before.
Indeed, I'm not sure that such tolerences would be a bad thing.

>Nevertheless, it is not easy to determine whether we have addictions or
>not. You say, Kirt, that you have clear instinctive stops with RAF, so
>you may not be addicted to meat. But are you addicted to fat?

Quite possibly. Almost surely in the case of avos, but RAFfat does stop
clearly. Whether the stop is late or not, well....

>And what
>about the fact that you don't get many burning-like stops with fruits?
>I too get less burning-like taste changes with (cold extracted organic)
>honey. Am I developing a tolerance to honey? Are cows grass-addicts?
>I am confused about that subject.

If there is anything to the idea that a "harsh stop" is preventing overload
of a "toxic in excess (anti)nutrient " of a particular food (or components
contained), then one might see a bland stop as more indicitive of an
increased "tolerance" of the components of raw food which might be more
troubling to a beginner. I had considered previously that the "loss of
flavor stop" was more common for long term instinctos than for beginners
who may have very exacting nutrient needs and, perhaps, a lessened ability
to deal with nutients that might be very detrimental in excess. For
example, during our years in Thailand, pineapple stops were more frequently
a loss of flavor as opposed to the burning acid stop associated with
pineapple. Indeed, pineapple was a staple for us--so perhaps this is an
example of tolerance more so than anything else...

>So, for all these reasons, the equation pleasure = health is not true, and
>even on the contrary in some cases, which s very troublesome: sometimes
>folowing and sometimes going to the opposite direction of what our
>instinct would tell us... I think these reasons are at the origin of
>the main "mistakes" that instinctos commonly make: too much sweet fruits,
>too much RAF, pigging oneself with fruits and then with nuts...

It's probably simply too much food altogether. I think a big problem is the
"eat until the taste changes" rule. Perhaps beginners should be advised not
to overeat instead advised to eat their fill. When something is tasting
stunning such a caveat won't prevent great consumption anyway, so why not
err on the side of conservatism? I wish I had started out with a
self-conciousness about overeating instead of an "every meal is a feast"
mentality. It has been a slow/gradual process of unlearning such an a
priori.

>But I will go further, and say that these are not "mistakes", but
>unavoidable consequences of the instincto dogma, except for a few
>enlightened persons; and I am sure there would remain a few frustrations,
>even for those who practice correctly, for the reasons I mentioned above.
>
>The theory may be beautiful, but it is useless if we can't practice.
>It is too easy to say "instincto-nutrition  is the optimal diet if it is
>practiced correctly". Every system can work. For instance, Urwana seems
>a good example of successful fruitarianism. But if we measure the efficiency
>of a diet by the percentage of persons who carry it successfully, instincto
>is a failure, and fruitarianism is worse.

Righto!

>Of course, G.C. Burger has set up a few protocols to avoid major "mistakes":
>no breakfast (to limit daily calorie intake), no fruits at dinner, only
>one protein each day. But on the one hand, that may not be enough, and on
>the other hand, following these principles demands some efforts. Maybe
>it is not the best solution, and maybe everyone has to search his own
>protocols that work best for himself. But one thing is certain: we cannot
>expect total pleasure and no frustrations. It is time for instinctos to
>grow up on that aspect too!

Yes. And looking to Burger to help anyone avoid mistakes is almost silly
IMO. His dishonesty and behavior begs any advice he might have... People
need to think for themselves and cure their itch for absolute-ism.

>My opinions about meat are:
>
>1) There are no convincing arguments for a purely vegan diet (except
>moral reasons). This subject was widely discussed on the former veg-raw
>list with Wardski, Raw Avery, NFL/"N 2nd thoughts", Kirt and others, so
>I won't come back to that, except for a few points that remained
>unclear:
>   *Paleo-humans used to eat 30-35% meat. That doesn't mean such a high
>amount would be beneficial to us. First, we are sedentary, we heat our
>houses, etc. Second, maybe they ate so much meat because they didn't
>find anyting else to eat, like Eskimos. Since there is an adaptation,
>it means that with 30-35% meat, an active man would stay reasonably healthy
>until 50 years old, but less meat would probably be better.

But why? Even if we nailed down the true paleolithic diet precisely we
would be left with the question: If our ancestors were attracted to more,
say, sweet fruit and fatty RAF than they could obtain then would they be
better off with a bit more of it. (And as I mentioned, new research puts
the average animal food consumption of paleohumans at 50+%!). Further,
cooking may have been a part of the human diet for tens of thousands of
years. To what degree the cooking was beneficial is arguable, but is too
often dismissed by rawists.

I have been experimenting with steamed veggies (cauliflower and brocolli)
and so far it seems a double-edged sword. Instinct does appear to operate
as efficiently with steamed as with raw. But of course, a greater volume is
attractive steamed--at least at first. After two weeks of 5 meals/week I am
able I find NO attraction sometimes and sometimes great attraction. Also,
both raw cauliflower and broccoli are _more_ attractive as a result.
Whether this is Good or Bad I may never know, but I am noting a general
similarity between the steamed veggies and many other "new" raw foods I
have encountered living different places: my instinct thrills to the new
flavor and then settles into a sustainable attraction. Plenty of new smells
in my feces and urine, but, OTOH, a flaky rash which has been endemic to my
shins since day two of instincto over 8 years ago has nearly vanished; it
diminished visibly within a day of steamed veggies. Hmmm....? In any case,
it has not been a story of "eating something cooked and falling into the
horrifying trenches of addiction" which we so much hear about in raw food
circles. Indeed, I feel even more balanced than ever...

>   *Generally speaking, instinct is probably not efficient wit diseases that
>occur at an old age, since 50 years were probably enough to breed,
>accumulate and teach one's experience. So, the pertinence of eating a
>food to cure such diseases doesn't necessarily show up in the taste. Of
>course, if meat (or nuts or anything else) really tastes wonderful, it
>should obviously be eaten, but until further scientific evidence,
>eating meat only when really attractive, or eating it each time it
>only tastes better than other proteins, are two possible philosophies
>that each of us can choose freely.

Given the trouble securing instincto-quality meat, we probably have a
supply-demand conflict which keeps most people from overdoing it. Still,
when living in New Zealand--where pastured meat (and free shellfish) is
widely available--there were few signs that meat had the addictive
potential that sweet fruit does. Who knows? To each his/her own...

>2) The fear of parasites may not be a good reason for not eating meat.
>As I said in an ealier post, water can contain dangerous parasites too,
>and instinctive quality *domesticated* (I forgot to mention that point)
>animals do not harbor Trichinella, or at least very rarely.

Ideas like this beg for documentation.

>Of course,
>domesticated animals have other inconvenients too, like selected
>fruits, but if we handle them with caution, there are no reasons to
>worry, at least on the parasite issue.

Yeah. Still my days of _recommending_ RAF are over. While I will continue
to eat it myself (excepting carnivores, esp wild), I can not publically
advance the instincto assumption (quite disproven to my eyes) that
parasites are beneficial or incidental--not when instinctos fall away
regularly from them.

>>Burger's wife dies of cancer in, what, her
>>fifties, sixties? He almost dies from malaria. At least one woman does die
>>of malaria. Several other instinctos get seriously ill with malaria. Zephyr
>>nearly dies of trich and who-knows-what.
>
>You are right to ask what the main reasons of disease are. The easiest
>excuse is to say they didn't practice correctly. Maybe true, maybe not,
>but suppose they did.
>
>1) Extra reasons: since our list is about raw food, it seems natural to us
>to be nutrition-centered, but IMO, psychology, way of life and proper
>exercising may e also, if not more important that nutrition. As for the
>record, I will mention:
>   *Koichi Tohei <snip>   *Tai Chi <snip>

Don't forget group sex, yoga, exercise, etc etc etc etc ;)

>2) We were not exposed to the Plasmodium Falciparum during childhood,
>and we did not receive antibodies from our mother. ...  But a proper
>nutrition would certainly help (and reducing malnourishment in the
>first place).

Yes. And this is a far cry from the overstatements of most instinctos.

>3) Nature is not perfect, as proved by the low average lifespan during
>prehistory. Even if it were due to a high infant mortality, that
>contradicts Burger's assumption that with instincto, ome doesn't need
>obstetrics, children have no diseases, and infections do not happen.

Most of reality contradicts Burger's assumptions it seems.

> ****** Conclusion ******
>
>Should we eat meat or not?
>
>I think instincto has at least the merit to ease reluctance in eating meat.
>I certainly wouldn't hav dared trying raw pork if other persons hadn't
>made the experiment earlier.
>
>We have to be aware of the risk of becoming addicted; but the problem
>of addiction/tolerance exists for every food, not only meat. Of course,
>even if there are no cerious scientific arguments against instinctive
>quality farm animals, but since the problem of meat is controversial
>(and the excess of proteins too), it would be a safe attitude to eat
>meat only when really attractive.

Sounds right on.

>and proteins, help prevent eating too much fruits and RAF. I still do not
>really understand why some persons at Montrame were disturbed when I
>told them I eat grains every day. Maybe doing so is not in the current
>mainstream practice of instincto, but so far it works for me.

That's what matters. Probably the folks at Montame could use some disturbing ;)

>Nevertheless, I still encourage anyone to experiment with RAF, at least
>during a short period (except of course those who are concerned about
>morality), to see if it makes a difference. Everyone is a particular case,
>so being warned of the potential dangers is a good thing, but
>experimenting oneself is better.

Sounds good. I'll continue to practice/experiment and not encourage--and
then when the next instincto drops I won't be responsible in any way, you
know? ;)

Thanks for you fine thoughts on the matter, JL.

Cheers,
Kirt