Tom,

Your post on the individual issues in diet were useful.  Couldn't agree
with you more but that each of us is metabolically as unique as are our
fingerprints different from any one else's.

This may not mean that anything goes, diet wise, or that there aren't some
basic laws operant in the nutritional arena; rather I would suggest that it
simply means that our large variety of metabolic types call for different
strokes for different folks...but still under the universal laws of sound
nutritional wisdom.  We all know how well a body can tolerate even small
ammounts of something as dangerous as arsenic, for example, but does that
mean that it's not dangerously toxic.  Hardly.

While someone may be almost "immune" to the hair raising effects some of
have to hot chili peppers, this doesn't also necessarily mean that they are
a "good" food for those with the "tolerance," does it?

Speaking of these little morsels, as you did, I've always loved
(addiction?) hot chilis, and used to be able, for instance, to "tolerate"
them very well.  But in more recent years have found some very pronounced
and dramatic personal metabolic responses to those delicious little things.
 If I ingest even a relatively small amount of the fruit's capsicum, for
example, I quickly break out in red spots on my snozz.  Mucous begins to
flow, and my eyes and nose run like I've got a full blown cold.  While this
new found knowledge hasn't dimished my cravings for those delectibles in
the slightest, my refreshed common sense does seem to help me through the
temptations more than used to be the case.

Maybe my addiction to those hot delights over so many years finally threw
my machinery off, but I would rather suspect that I was damaging myself in
my more toxic days...and my body just couldn't react properly to let me
know these were not really healthy foods?  I strongly suspect that my
"instincts" were about as turned off as they could possibly have been.
Who's to know?

This whole botanical family of the nightshades has some interesting
aspects, probably deserving of much more study.

In each of our own unique metabolic profiles, over any period of time, we
can also see broad swings in our metabolic states...so, what may work well
today, may not work at all down the pike, even in the same or similar
instance with the same individual.

Roger Williams dealt with this indivuality factor brilliantly many years
ago, as I am sure you are aware.

Anyway....

You said:

>[My comments address the topic of diet: individual needs vs. the dogma of
>the one 'perfect' diet.]

>I recommend eating a variety of foods: prevents boredom, and reduces cravings
>(cravings are a major problem on high sugar diets like fruitarianism.) Eating
>a variety of foods also means you will get a larger variety of nutrients.

>The most healthy diet will vary by individual; in my experience there is
>no one, single diet that is somehow 'best' for everyone.

Sure couldn't agree more up to this point.

[Snipped out some more of your message for brevity.....]

In respect to the very, very old ketogenic diet of cooked animal
fats...there was never any work done in the original research many moons
ago at Johns Hopkins to investigate the use of other fatty acid foods,
certainly none in the raw category, so maybe we shouldn't jump to safely
conclude that the diet is somehow perfected.  First of all, it doesn't help
every single participant that has epilepsy, and that fact is well documented.

It is a remarkable, and obviously life and grief saving intervention in
many injured lives, however, so I'm surely not about to knock the protocol.
 The fact that the allopathic industry has suppressed this diet for so
long, alone, makes its credibility look pretty good.

One MD specialist up at the UCLA Pediatric Center, and epilepsy specialist,
even (obviously in an off-guard moment) remarked once last year  _on
camera_  that the diet maybe wasn't
more popular nor subscribed in the field...."...because there wouldn't be
any profit in the use of a simple diet..."  The fact that the numerous and
hideous chemical "medicines" used in his field are obscenely expensive and
highly profitable, wasn't directly addressed, if I recall.

Bit by bit, maybe the public sector is waking up the unbelievable scam the
medical monopoly has perpetrated on the trusting public all these years.
Their unforgivable mis-deeds are becoming not only legion, but are getting
aired for the first time in many an age.

This list is more preaching to the choir than helping the general public,
but the rawist authors of some recent works like Roe Gallo and our own
three musketeers of NFL fame, are helping a great deal in the wake up
call...that's my opinion, anyway.

I'll be looking forward to this afternoon's nationally syndicated broadcast
by the three raw enthusiasts at five pm.  Hope they get some challenging
call-ins, which they'll probably handle quite well.  The fact that the
radio talk show host, Peter Weissbach, has called them back within a month
of their first airing on his show, is simply amazing.  He's a tough host,
and rarely calls anyone back that fast...if ever.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone was willing to do some  _recognized_
research on the application of NH to the epilepsy issue?  Am sure that
you're aware of the many anecdotal cases of epilepsy ostensibly relieved by
NH.  The problem is that the establishment doesn't want to recognize these
events because they weren't properly "controlled" nor documented...by
impartial observers.  Ha.

Best,

Ric