Hi Bruno!

I enjoyed your thoughtful reply.

>> >Cooked food is not only a cause of health problems but also of the
>> >crazy modern nervous behaviours called wars, urban violence, rioting...

>> Perhaps that's a bit overstated, Bruno?

>Perhaps. But I do believe that raw food plays a major role if not the
>major role, in a number of abnormal human behaviours commonly observed,
>and in the average degree of nervousness of an individual or of
>populations.

I feel denatured food is a seriously exasperating co-factor to most
troubling behaviors. Both on a personal and evolutionary level, denatured
foods express themselves as cause and effect of current, historic, and
pre-historic "abnormal" behaviors.

>Since 10 years I have done something like 50.000
>measurements with the Stressometer on raw and cooked eaters. Rawies are
>not always calm, and cookies not always nervous, and each of us sees his
>microscopic nervous tremor move up and down depending on daily stress,
>work, food, powersleep or yoga sessions, making love or not, exceptions
>or not to the diet... But, on the average, raw eater's microscopic
>tremor at rest in the 3 to 20 Hz zone is about half that of those on a
>"normal" cooked diet. This is very clear : when you take any group of 10
>persons including some raw and some non-raw, the raw ones almost always
>get the lower and better TNR (Tremor of the Nervous System) scores. On
>the opposite, nicotine, caffeine, and cooked cereals, especially whole
>grain bread, have the most intense effect and produce a high increase in
>the TNR levels. However the high level TNR people also have high
>variations in their TNR levels and therefore are sometimes as low as raw
>eaters, enough for the rule not to be absolute, but they will bounce up
>again at another moment, while the raw non-smoker's results are both
>lower (on the average) and more stable.

Your Stressometer seems a very useful quantifier of nervous system "noise"
and I look forward to experimenting myself with such a device. Clearly,
denatured foods contributes significantly to stress. Do raw eaters show a
rise in score during detox episodes? Do manic-depressives show low scores
during their depressive stages? How do you differenciate between a low
score as resulting from repression versus a "true" low stress level.

Nicotine, caffeine, cereals, etc might be seen as stimulants which would,
of course, increase nervous "noise". I assume one could induce a low stress
state from depressant drugs, no? Or does the Stressometer "see through"
such chemical intervention. Or perhaps, as you say, it is the lower average
scores and lower standard deviations which are telltale of a more normal
metabolism.

>If you don't have a stressometer but have raw children or if you
>practise a fairly strict raw diet and have been strictly abstaining from
>all neuroactive drugs (including cooked foods and heated cereals) for at
>least a few months, the experiment of eating whole grain bread and/or
>drinking coffea and/or smoking is very instructive. In a few minutes
>(cigarette or coffea) or 1/2 hour (neuroactive foods), it makes you feel
>(or makes your children act) as if you'd been taking neuroleptics of
>some kind. Dreams, behaviours, nervosity, subjective stress are
>affected.

>This I believe and have observed, does lead much more easily and in a
>not-well-controlled way, to disputes, agressivity, insatisfaction and
>various disorders. On a whole population, it could logically trigger
>wars, jealousy, or other forms of nervous tensions between groups of
>population more easily than would have been the case in nature.

Yes. Though I would say that it _exasperates_ more than "triggers" but
since I know neither word in French I humbly refrain from making a big deal
about it. ;)

>But I do agree that sexual jealousy, social injustice, etc, also play a
>role. Violence obviously does exist in nature in all primates and animal
>groups. Even insects which I spent years observing can be violent enough
>to reach, but these forms of violence I beleive are controlled by nature
>(or "instinct") and respond to a specific need useful for the
>individual.

>Jealousy or violent impulses in sexual relations or human relations I
>beleive are the consequence of mistakes, and are there to point out
>these mistakes. But cooked food will amplify them so much that they
>don't even play their role anymore.

>Humanity would surely be very different and more peaceful with another
>type of nutrition.

Yes. Very well put.

>Algerians and a number of muslim countries have fanatical attitudes
>today. Those countries are also those on the planet who eat the highest
>percentage of whole bread or flour-foods. Given the Stressometer
>data,... it isn't stupid at all to imagine that food is the major factor
>in making populations nervous or stresed or fanatical, this being
>enhanced or triggered by the well known other social, overpopulatio,
>sexual and so on factors. Hitler was a vegetarian, but he was also a
>regular whole-bread eater (like many vegetarians)... In fact, whole
>grain bread and cigarettes have much more effect on the nervous system
>(at least according to stressometer measurements) than eating meat (even
>cooked) and I would think that the abnormal neuroactive molecules in the
>bread of Hitler's vegetarian diet is what made him crazy (+ of course,
>or enhanced by, his own personal, sexual, etc., history).

I suspect that the inability of humans to deal properly with cooked cereals
will be the next big "news" in nutritional circles.

>In some cases,
>personal, historical situations can also be enough to put you off-track
>even if you are on a strict raw diet (not so easily though).

Yeah. Perhaps Guy-Claude himself qualifies on this. There seems to be a
greater tendancy for such "off-track" behavior among fruitarian (and to a
lessor degree vegan) rawists--at least that's how I see it in the USA. How
do you find the European raw-vegans who come to instincto fare in this
regard? And how do they seem to do with the addition of RAF in their diet?

>Myself, I used to be rather jerky when I was a greedy vegan whole grain
>bread eater in the early 80's before coming to a raw intinctive and
>insect diet.

I have heard through the grapevine that you ate LOTS of meat for a time and
now consider that insects are 10 times more satisfying (that is: 100g of
insects = 1kg of meat). I am very interested in your view these days of
aged meat and seafood in comparison with insects.

>When a subject is vital and unknown it may be more useful to overstate
>it a little bit to attract attention to it. In a sense, your response
>shows that at least there's a reaction and my overstatement was at least
>useful to trigger an exchange.

Jeez, Bruno, no need to overstate on my account! ;) I don't need a trigger
to engage in an exchange with you. More like I hold myself back from asking
your opinion on about 100 topics! =:O :)

You have _far_ more experience trying to attract some long-overdue
attention to instincto than I do, and I'm sure my ignorance on the matter
is substantial. Nevertheless, my bone marrow tells me that understatement
is better in the long-run. Here's why I hope that is true (in spite of
Oprah to the contrary)...

1] The overstatements may attract, primarily, faddists. I assume what will
be needed for the importance of raw foods to become a "media sensation" is
the serious investigation and support of your theses by traditional medical
researchers. Food-faddists have been overstating things for decades and are
perhaps looking for "followers" more than scientific Truth (most of whom I
think on _some_ level probably know their explanations would never meet the
rigors of science--though, as ignarant as many seem to be of what science
is all about, maybe not).

2] Overstatement is basically hype, whereas understatement and doubt is
(theoretically, at least) part and parcel to the method of science. Serious
researchers and others of "intellectual integrity" in medicine and science,
are more likely to dismiss overstatements, which are then
counter-productive to the purposes of "speading the word".

3] I think your basic method and theoretical formulations will stand up to
anything science can devise as a test of them. In other words, you don't
need to overstate: you are simply "before your time". Overstating cheapens
the message, and history rarely treats it well. In still other words:
fruitarians must overstate things to cover up the fact that they are
false-to-facts. Instinctos might not need to do this, since instincto has
less to cover up, is very likely less false-to-facts.

Heck, I guess the above three points all say the same thing in different
words, eh? Oh well. Tom Billings also brought up a very relevent point
recently. When the expected results are inflated, then expectations are
rarely met. "A seed yeilds bitter fruit" was the imagary/analogy he
invoked. I wonder if a similar thing isn't true with the "inflation"
evident in "overstating for attention". Might overstatements come back and
haunt at times?

I don't know. The issue is heavy on my mind these days though.

>But you're right, raw food isn't everything. Health and happiness is a
>larger program...
>
>Please receive my rawest salutations.

Received loud and clear, Bruno!

BTW, do you notice that I am not replying to the many parasite questions
recently posted? I am hoping this will spur you to respond to them as they
pile up. ;) Has my stategy a chance of succeeding?

Smiling widely,
Kirt