Md> From: Tiina Makela <[log in to unmask]>
 Md> To: Michael Clingman <[log in to unmask]>
 Md> Subject: Re: veg-raw: update on alt; types of raw-fooders (fwd)

 Md> I am going to eat only food that smells good and tastes good. It`s the
 Md> way animals eat, but I`m afraid some of MY instincts may be hidden
 Md> behind our civilization, but I still believe I`ve not lost all of them!

    It takes some initial cleansing and detox, done best on a raw,
properly-combined-for-digestion, diet to develop an increasing
awareness of what our bodies want.  Before this work is done, we tend
to have strong culturally conditioned 'wants' that are _much_ louder
than the signals from the body that tell us what _it_ wants.
    Remember how much of that cultural 'food' we believed we 'liked'
before we started changing our diets??
    Becoming increasingly more aware of what our body _really_ wants,
and becoming more aware of the feedback signals after every meal, is
what I call 'developing body wisdom'.
    The overall direction is clear; people who stabilize on raw food
generally move more and more toward a fruit diet.  The problems
actually doing this, however, are a reflection of the poor quality of
the food supply.
    Due to the poor quality of available 'foods', however, don't be
surprized if you eventually discover nothing commercial actually
tastes good.  I've personally stopped eating many of my favorite foods
in the past 26 years that I have been doing private research on
various vegetarian diets, this only because of the precipitous drop in
quality of 'foods' in that period.

 Md> Right now my inner voice says that eating healthy does not provide any
 Md> huge effort like gathering all information from all sources available.
 Md> I know, intuitively, that eating in the right way is a simple thing.
 Md> Does it apply to us, civilized people or just to animals and maybe some
 Md> primitive human cultures only?

    Regardless of whatever intellectual and social fantasies the human
species has generated in the past 100,000 years, our biochemistry has
not changed and our bodies need what they are designed to eat.  Eating
otherwise, as the cultural diet shows clearly, creates all the
'diseases' that plague the human species.

 Md> Further, eating instincively might be a little bit easier in the
 Md> tropics. So: Do you think I`m at a wrong place, do I have any hope to
 Md> learn to eat instinctively?

    Absolutely correct.  Since we are living in the bodies of
relatively hairless tropical primates, the further we wander away from
our ecological niche the less the correct inputs that support our
healthful living become available.  We try to make up for the losses
by technology: clothes, housing, fires to keep warm, cooking, ...  But
it doesn't work.  Mangoes do not grow in Finland.

 Md> Tiina (whose soul thirst for living under the open sky!)

    Ultimately, if we really want to be healthy, we must build
tropical communities structured to provide our true human needs.
That is my long-term goal.