Karl:
>...and I think that if all people
>were eating raw today, and someone would invent
>processed food, then he probably wouldn't get an
>admission to sell it, because it is much to dangerous.
>The all-raw people would notice the bad effects very
>directly and the FDA or similar institutions just
>wouldn't allow it to be sold.

Take this scenario back to the days before the mastery of fire. Then
someone _did_ invent processed (cooked) food. And it took. Not because
there weren't laws made to prohibit it. And probably not because cooking
was an evil addiction, but because the cooking cultures outpopulated the
non-cooking cultures. Something about it was very likely _useful_. Not
perfect (as raw foods aren't perfect) but it may be that the trade offs
(whatever they are) balanced out in favor of some cooking. Why didn't the
original (probably dimmer-witted) rawists in our human ancestry "notice the
bad effects very directly" and abandon their heated efforts? I know, I
know, because cooking is a Faustian bargain which humans could never
extracate themselves from if it weren't for the instincto purists'
evenagelical vision which will save humankind from the evils of steamed
greens and a pig roast...;)

Indeed, why don't I personally notice the bad effects directly. In a sense
I feel that my dietary adventure of the last 9 years has taken me along the
path parralleling that our ancestors. Pure instincto being somewhat
analogous to a homonid pre-fire way of eating (though surely there was some
mixing going on--chimps do after all). Then deliberate mixing of raw foods
to increase pleasure (salads) and extractions (juicing, olive oil, etc).
Such "tricks" were probably done before the mastery of fire. And now
testing paleo-foods (and raw dairy for good measure) simply cooked, as our
ancestors would likely have done once fire became a tool.

If instincto lore was true for all, then my health should be falling apart,
which doesn't seem to be happening at all. Indeed, until instinctos on
average "beat" the biomarkers of recent hunter-gatherers (cooking varying
degrees--none all-raw) on average, I gotta question whether all-raw is so
great. Especially since I am doing just fine on a cooked paleo regime at
present. The track record of instincto is pretty weak (something that is
conveniently forgotten when instincto lore is reiterated)...so before you
tell me that it takes years for the trouble to show up (which may well be),
I would remind you that it took years for many instinctos' troubles to show
up as well.

Anyway, the superior all-raw folks you allude to above are probably more
theoretical (if not simply wishful thinking) than actual. And the horrible
results they would notice if not eating all-raw might have as much to do
with a kind of placebo effect and any supposedly toxic effects of cooked
paleo-food.

Perhaps someone should do a survey of the 90+% of instinctos who return to
some cooked foods and ask them how horrible it is, as opposed to relying on
instincto purists' reports of how a micron of Denatured Unfood caused
convultions and supperating lesions to form until it was completely detoxed
;)

Cheers,
Kirt