>Kirt:
>>And longtime instinctos have died of malaria and cancer, had trich and
>>staph infections which would not self-limit, and become/remain metally
>>unbalanced. My conclusion: "excellent health" on an instincto diet is

Stefan:
>But how rare compared to the incidence of these illnesses amongst the
>cooked population!

Hmmmm....how rare? indeed. Given the very few purist instinctos out there I
gotta wonder if these instinctos' track record isn't _worse_, perhaps much
worse, than cooked fooders. During the years I lived in the tropics, none
of my cooked food friends got malaria (though one had a hell of a time with
cholera). And I knew several hundred cooked fooders, many of them traveling
far off the beaten path. Of the two 100% instincto purists I know of in the
USA, Zepher had trich and another had staph, seriously so. Making the
percent of 100% instinctos in the USA who experience excellent health
without modern medication to be 0%. Among other "less than purist
instinctos" who still follow the regime to a high degree I have heard of
high blood pressure/cholesteral troubles, miscarries (my wife, twice before
while mostly raw), chronic excema-like patches (myself on my shin), and
other less than excellent health. The "first family" of instincto, the
Burger's, appear no more healthy than an "ordinary" family, and in some
ways much worse off. Indeed, it would be interesting to hear how the Burger
children (now adults) who do NOT eat all-raw are doing. Certainly can't be
much worse off than their parents ;)

Smileys or not, Stefan, I am quite serious in believing that the instincto
track record is not exemplarly of excellent health. Given the extremely
small sample of purist instinctos, the handful of horror stories I know
about (malaria, cancer, trich, staph) are pretty dang significant. If it
were possible to actually do some statistical research on instinctos vs raw
vegans vs paleo-dieters, vs SADers, etc. I really doubt that instinctos
would fare as well as you think they would. Much of instincto health is
self-proclaimed. Health problems are often dismissed as detox and the
avoidance of any medical treatment may mean that such proclomations of
health are simply that, and not documented in any sense. Many instinctos
are at the regime less than a decade making longterm info hard to come by.
Which may be a lucky thing for the idealistic instinctos--since they can
continue to believe in the myth of instincto super-health.

>And it it suffices to eat olive leaves to cure mala-
>ria I wonder what would have cured Zephyr's trichinosis. I'm just spe-
>culating here of course.

Except as I understand it olives (dry hot or Mediterranian climates) are
not endemic to areas which malaria is endemic (the humid tropics)...I would
very gladly try olive leaves if I was suffering from malaria but would have
to admit that it was "civilization" (Peter via the internet) which informed
me of such a treatment and "cicilization" which made available the leaves
(since I have no olive tree within thousands of miles of me, that I know
of). Many traditional peoples who have knowldge of herbal remedies still
die from transmited diseases. I could speculate that olive leaves may well
NOT have been available to many (perhaps most) of our ancestors dealing
with malaria. Who knows?

>Our civilisation seems to have lost the know-
>ledge of herbs eaten in their natural state. Instead we invest enormous
>sums into investigation of pharmaceutical substances which at the end
>probably turn out to have been contained in herbs since the beginning
>of time.

Herbal medicine to deal with the failings of instincto? That's a new slant,
but if you think modern medicines contain the active ingrediants of herbal
medicines then what is so bad about modern medicine? If eatiing instincto
itself isn't enough to ensure excellent health (and it is surely not) then
what part(s) of instincto theory has been modified to explain the horrible
track record we see?

Cheers,
Kirt