This discourse is fascinating.  Some comments to Robert and Bodhi follow:
Re Robert (Bob's?) and his raw experience:

>Color me 99 & 44/100ths % raw since Jan, '93.  My violations in the past
>12 months have been of the inadvertent nature only.

>I'm still working on the other (inadvertent) 0.56%.  I bought some dried
>bananas about a year ago that I reacted to poorly (foul-smelling gas and
>turds).  That's when I realized that even dried fruit, when dried at high
>temperatures is essentially cooked.  Unfortunately, I had bought 16.5 #
>of the stuff, so I kept trying to eat it.  Gabriel Cousens says (in
>"Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet") that cooked food won't cause
>leukocytosis if you eat an equal or greater amount of raw food of the
>same type first (raw spinach before steamed spinach, for example).  So I
>ate a few raw bananas and then a few oz of dried --- no dice; the bod
>still didn't like it.  I eventually gave away the last 10 # or so of the
>stuff to a non-raw friend.

Gabriel is a nice fellow.  Has done lots for the raw food movement (no
double entendre, there!), but would be interested in any of his
documentation on this thesis.  It doesn't jibe too well, from my
recollection, of the work done ages ago in Switzerland by Dr. Benner.  If I
remember, his clinical work showed that even some cooked with the raw would
still trigger the immune leukocytosis response.

I've found the same experience as Robert over the past twenty years of
rawing it.  Anything dried is great for entertainment and as a survival
item, but many dried foods, even those done at low temps, can still trigger
one's bod to complain, but this seems to vary from food to food. Dried
fruits are notorious flatulence producers, teeth decayers, dehydrators (of
the bod) and so on, but some other things, such as dried crackers made of
soaked and self-gelled flaxseeds, on the other hand, don't seem to provoke
adverse reactions at all.

>I now check with vendors to find out the drying temperature of fruit
>before buying.  My body's getting to be more sensitive to heat damage
>anyway, so it's harder to fool.  For example, I bought some dried dates
>and figs at the same time as the bananas.

My experience and that of my kids with dried dates (the kind sold 99% of the
time) is uniformly one of some flatulence, varying, of course, with the
quantity consumed and the relative strength of one's digestive enzyme
colony.  I can easily overindulge, however, in fresh dates ("green:), the
way the arabs love 'em...yet experience no gas manufacturing.

deleted more...

>I recently discovered Michael Clingman's raw nut guide on the Internet

Where'd you find his guide...?  Got an address?

>>don weaver inspires me.  he's passed the 20 year benchmark, i
>>believe.  he told me he doesn't eat much of any fermented food.

Is this the same Don Weaver who used to enthusiastically follow Dr. Anne's
teachings?  He used to live in the San Fernando Valley (Calif) and worked in TV.

>>my  new dentist, thomas stone,

Where is he located...and his address, especially for e-mail?

>>...has followed his own lifestyle of live foodery
>>for 35 circumambulations of the sun.  he told me his "secret" -- lots of
>>algae!

Do you buy it in bulk directly from Pines...or your local NF store?

skipped some more delightful reading...

>>i discovered mr. stone's existence through dorleen tong of
>>s.f. life (san francisco live food enthusiasts).  i joined the gang back
>>when they called themself the "sflfsg" (san francisco living foods
>>support group).  the name change definitely suits me.

Bodhi...are they still active in SFO?  Got an internet address for them...or
snail mail variety?  My son's in Santa Cruz, so maybe on one of my visits up there
could drop in on one of their meetings.

Thanks,

Ric

skipped some more...
oons ago, when I used to come
over to California from Arizona to study the communal hippies around San
Diego and L.A. counties, many lived on Citrus orchards...consuming vast
quantities of the juicy fruits, and, though comparatively young (mostly
twenties), their teeth advertised the dangers of too much of the acidic
stuff.  They were a dental nightmare of corroded teeth (and I wondered about
their skeletal calcium status, too) and receding gums.

Thanks for the enjoyable and informative conversation.

Ric