Patricia:
>Last night I finally bought some fresh yellow-fin tuna at the natural foods
>market.  I had been thinking about it a lot since my experience a month
>ago.  Again, I shared it with my cat - but my cat, who goes crazy for
>canned tuna, showed no interest at all in her portion.  ???

??? Yeah! I love such surprises...

>I ignored her
>reaction and ate my portion anyway.  The flavor _was_ very different and
>the texture was much smoother than I expected.  Again, no digestive upset.
>I did get a little hyper-active and stayed up an hour later than usual.

Raw fish "swims in your blodstream" after you eat it ;)

>I
>just don't know what to attribute that to.  I also bought some salmon,
>which did not taste as quite as good to me and is now sliced and aging in
>the dehydrator.  My cat ignored it, too.  (Should I listen to her?)

Probably better than listening to me! ;)

Watch out for farmed salmon (very common)...probably best avoided, but who
knows? Though your cat probably wouldn't care one way or the other...

>The more raw I try to eat, the more I binge on processed foods.  I crave
>something, but I am not sure what.  When I ate potato chips and wine for my
>Sunday dinner I realized my eating had become totally irrational.  I have
>all of these wonderful fresh whole plant foods available and while they are
>still appealing, they aren't satisfying.  I admit I haven't read my books
>yet (Severen's and Zephyr's) - but they are toward the top of the pile.
>Could someone give me some quick advice on how to determine what I need?  I
>am also probably peri-menopausal.

Maybe you do _need_ potato chips and wine! :) I'm only being _half_
sarcastic here. But, no, there is no quick advise on how you can tell what
you need really. Severen's book will give you a feel for what
instincto-therapy and theory is like...but when mealtime rolls around, well
there ain't nothing that works for everyone. ;)

>About the flavor change:  I ate an apple that tasted great.  The next one I
>spit out.  I went for the third one anyway and it tasted great.  I thought
>they were all from the same batch.  How do you know if you are truly
>experiencing a taste change or if one bad apple has slipped into the mix?

Yeah. Even a single apple has different flavors (top and bottom, side to
side, inside to outside). Every food is different, every moment. It can be
interesting to smell before biting to see if you can match up any smell
clues to how it tastes. You will know you got the stop when you can find no
other apple that tastes good. But by that time you have probably "ruined"
plenty of apples, as well as over-eaten too-sweet domesticated apples...

There are no clear answers to this stuff. Sorry.

>About bread:  It is so _convenient_.  You grab a few slices and transport
>them easily to some other location to eat.  Nothing to spill or make a
>sticky mess.  And so readily available prepared by someone else - no time
>on your part at all.  What is the equivalent in the raw world?  I like
>Elysa Markowitz's rye bread recipe (rye berries, sunflower seeds, and flax
>seeds), but I have to soak the ingredients in advance, it is a real mess to
>make in my old VitaMix, and it takes a day to dehydrate.  Okay, so make
>that question "What is the lazy person's equivalent in the raw world?" :-)

Vonderplanitz gets some milage out of a undenatured honey/raw butter
mixture. I imagine that would taste good more often than not...

I am relatively uncomfortable in the "mentor mode" assumed in your
questions, but don't want to leave you hanging either. ;)  The terrible
truth (or at least it seems terrible for a time) is that no one can answer
a lot of those kinds of questions for someone else. Reading Severen's book
will give an idea of the "instincto" answer to diet/nutrition. It's an
interesting point of view...

You're a brave soul to try some sashimi. My hat goes off to you! Hopefully,
other listers will have some ideas for you!

Cheers,
Kirt