>From:	Nieft / Secola <[log in to unmask]>

>Jeez, Doug, I thought the human appetite motivates towards
> pizza :)

Boy, do you ever have that right, especially a big veggie pizza with
all sorts of stuff heaped up on it.

>>Cancer incidence is directly related to protein intake,
> lifespan is inversely related.  Animal protein is clearly worse in this
> regard than is vegetable.

>Is this true with raw animal foods, which contain the enzymes
> to break down the proteins and fat into aminos and fatty acids?

Of the stuff people on this list are likely to eat, the following
are listed in descending order of carcinogenicity/life-shortening:

RAF
raw plant proteins
fats

Protein is pretty nasty stuff, & one of the great things about the
NH movement is that it has addressed the protein requirement myth
right from the start.  And I think Bob Avery was wrong in his recent
thing about concluding that when he decreased his nut consumption
his body temperature the next AM was lower due to a decreased
caloric consumption.  This is largely true, but I suspect only
partially so in that I believe equal caloric quantities of protein
or carbohydrates will burn at hotter levels in the case of protein.
I'm not sure of this, & chemically it does not make much sense.  (We
of course do not burn protein, but have to first to convert it to
glucose, & this is what I am getting at.)  I'm going to try to look
into this.  What I do know is that carbohydrates burn much "cleaner"
than do proteins, not throwing off such things as urea (a very
deleterious substance) which must then be eliminated.

In one of the recent posts on this whole subject, somebody said that
you can get needed nutrients from RAF that you just can not obtain
(or obtain easily) from plant foods.  I find no reason to accept
this.  Animal (or plant) proteins when burned for fuel in the body
first have to be broken down & converted to glucose.  Plant sugars,
on the other hand, are pretty much ready to go.  It requires a lot
more work on the part of the body to deal with protein, and I assume
that this extra burden requires extra calories to operate this whole
metabolic machine.  And extra calories is just the worst thing you
can do for yourself.  Protein is a very inefficient & dirty food.
I'm preaching to the choir here, & most know that there is very
little daily requirement for the amino acids which must be extracted
by the body from the whole protein food before they can be put to
use.  And there have even been experiments which indicated that
partial amino acid deficiencies have a life-prolonging effect.  I'm
pretty busy right now, but hopefully within a week I'll post
something on the scientific studies on this.  If our bodies need
glucose as fuel, what benefit is there in eating something 3 steps
removed from it? If we can easily satisfy our amino acid & fat needs
from plants, what can RAFs give us that plants can not?


>>again, I sometimes (as I am doing now) eat dairy products.
> I'm weak in this regard & I admit it.

>Maybe you aren't weak, Doug. Maybe you need those foods and
> that is why you're attracted to them in the small amounts you need. Who
> knows, but it sounds like you have found what works for you, eh?

No, I'm just weak or have bad habits.  No way is Chet going to
convince me that it is O.K. to do this & it is not a sign of
weakness.  I (or anybody) can make all kinds of excuses to
ourselves, but I have no doubt that this stuff is not doing me much
good.  I can feel it in my body.  One very important guide I use is
noting what foods do to me when I come off a long fast.  You can
really feel it in the first few days of refeeding, & "negative"
foods are much more noticeable then than later on when we become
more "food addicted" again after back to our original weight.  It is
right at the end of a fast when I can grasp just how little food the
body is able to get by on each day, & how little it takes to turn
catabolism into net anabolism once again.

BTW, people on the CR list grapple with the same sort of stuff,
relating how they go off their intended caloric intake.  On that
list I am positively motivated to be more disciplined by seeing what
others have accomplished, and I think we should be on this list too:
setting a high standard of fidelity to whatever it is that each of
us is aiming for.  The alternative is to start making excuses or
even condoning this or that indiscretion, which before you know it
can lead to worse indiscretions.  Don't get me wrong: many, many
days I eat too much, don't sleep enough, eat too many nuts, eat too
late into the evening or whatever.  But I am not about to condone
what I do & I think we should all try to help each other set high
goals.

>I am wide open to someone convincing me that raw animal foods
> are bad for me, but no one comes close. All I hear is that they are bad
> because we are supposed to be more highly evolved in some way than
>being an  omnivore. Your point that protein is bad because it diminishes
>life span is a refreshingexception to the religious talk usually put forth.
>Again, I am interested in the references. Do share, please.

Although I sometimes resort to evolutionary arguments, I don't
really think they hold much water, & all I'm personally concerned
with is whether this or that extends or shortens average lifespans.
I don't care whether it is a synthetic chemical or whatever, if it
extends life is all that matters to me.  But to resort to the old NH
evolutionary arguments, humans clearly have the intestines &
dentition of herbivores.  I'll dig around & in a separate post list
stuff on why protein is clearly a no-no & why V. Vetrano is wrong
when she says a high proportion of total calories from fat will not
harm you.

--Doug Schwartz
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