From: [log in to unmask] Alexander Rice wrote > I believe the expulsion of Laurie from this list has not been sufficiently > justified. Tom has left of his own accord, and I will miss his presence. > However, Laurie deserves to remain a contributor as long as he wishes to > be, or until a truly valid reason for his expulsion presents itself. > IMHO, > Alexander The following was submitted by Laurie: TB> B-12 is required for growing new blood cells, which is an ongoing TB> maintenance TB> activity of the body. A common symptom of B-12 deficiency is anemia, TB> specifically pernicious anemia. So unless you stop growing new blood TB> cells, TB> you do need B-12. (B-12 is also needed for the nervous system.) LF> "Neither animals nor plants can synthesize vitamin B12, which is LF>manufactured only be a few microorganisms. Pernicious anemia is not LF>simply the result of a deficiency of vitamin B12 in the diet but is LF>caused by the failure of the patient to absorb vitamin B12 from LF>ingested food, due to the lack of a specific glycoprotein in gastric LF>juice called the _intrinsic factor_. This protein binds one molecule LF>of vitamin B12 and carries it into the intestinal cells, from which it LF>is transported, bound to other proteins called transcobalamins, to the LF>peripheral tissues." [Lehnenger, Biochemistry, 1981, p. 349.] LF> So, pernicious anemia is unrelated to dietary intake of B12, as LF>you falsely claim. Here Laurie has completely twisted the statement of Lehnenger. Lehnenger says that vitamin B12 deficiency "is caused by the failure of the patient to absorb vitamin B12 from ingested food...". For B12 to be absorbed from the food there must be B12 in the food. Laurie has taken a statement concerning a patient with B12 intake who is unable to absorb the B12 to mean that B12 intake is unnecessary. So Laurie is propagating incorrect and very possibly harmful information here under the guise of scientific fact. Then to top it off he throws in a subtle insult to someone who disagrees with him. The fact is that vitamin B12 deficiency does cause anemia and possibly irreversible nervous system damage. If you eat a purely vegan diet and wash the dirt off your food there is a definite possibility that you will develope vitamin B12 deficiency. A lot of Laurie's posts contain claims that to me seem of dubious reliability. The above example proves to me that his familiarity with scientific literature is no assurance that he knows what he is talking about or that what he says is accurate. I am uncomfortable being in a situation of propagating ideas that I personally believe are very questionable. John Coleman writes: >(These are my opinions on moderation in general and veg-raw) >Yes, it seems to have got ruff recently, I do not envy you MC! Laurie has always >been blunt, but his opinions should be respected, he should be entitled to say as >he chooses- we all should, I draw the line on my lists only when personal insults >(obsenities etc...) start. IMO if a person cannot defend their viewspoints with >facts & figures they should not make them, if you are wrong, be honest and admit >it, that is part of being a mature adult. I guess I am more sensitive to insults and put downs than you are. I see this list as an information resource for people attempting to live on a raw food diet. There is no reason to have arguments or put people down. At heart I see the argument between Tom and Laurie as really a confrontation of two different approaches. Tom's approach is to say I tried this, this is what happened. It worked or it didn't work. I have friends who tried it. Their experience was similar. I talked with other people involved with raw foods. Their perceptions matched mine. Based on the sum total experience of a lot of people doing this over a long period of time this is what I recommend. This is what works and this is what doesn't. Laurie's approach is to try to determine "rationally" what a raw foods diet should be. This lends itself to lots of debates and philosophical arguments. Lots of time spent discussing numbers and theory. Personally I prefer Tom's approach. Obviously the people upset about my canning Laurie prefer his approach. I have been on a predominately raw foods diet for a number of years. One thing I noticed was that I met very very few people who were on a raw foods diet. This didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that I met a fair number of people who had been on all raw diets, usually for a period of a few years, had good things to say about it, but had not stayed with it. One of my reasons for reinstating the mailing list was to find out what happened. Why was it hard to stay on the diet? What could one do to make it work? I believed philosophically that it was the way to go. The question for me was how to implement it over the long haul. All these theoretical debates don't do much for me. There was all that discussion about protein requirements. The old line that mother's milk contains such and such percentage protein, which is similar to the protein content of fruit, indicates that fruit can meet all your protein requirements was brought up. Then it was brought up that maybe adults require more protein than babies due to their increased size. And then, oh yeah, it matches the protein concentration but not the sugar or fat concentration. All this was bandied back and forth, numbers thrown around. What was the result? What are our protein requirements? If an answer was in there I certainly missed it. It is possible to come up with all kinds of wonderful theories. The protein/ mother's milk/fruit idea goes back to Viktoras Kulvinskas's "Survival in the Twentyfirst Century" book. He discusses it all in there. He went around promoting fruit and sprouts and wheatgrass, a very clean diet. Theoretically it made great sense. He has a physics degree and is a good logical thinker. But he couldn't stick with it. He was bingeing all the time. I do know that when I first started raw foods it was easy to go for long stretches on just fruit. I felt great. But now I can't do that. When I eat just fruit my body feels that something is missing. I don't believe that this is due to inadequate detoxification. I believe my body is telling me that a fruit or fruit and greens diet does not meet my needs. Another thing I know is that Laurie lives in Florida. His situation there may be very different from mine. I personally believe that a fruit and greens diet might work if you live in a warm climate with a pristine environment and get plenty of exercise. That is not my situation. I work at a desk all day and don't get enough exercise. In the States the air pollution here in Baltimore is second only to that in Los Angelos. The weather gets very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. There is high humidity year round which seems to amplify the temperature extremes. So I want to find what will work for someone in my situation. If someone asks me about raw foods I don't want to tell them that they have to move to Ecuador. Finally, the form of arguing or "debating" that Laurie likes to engage in just doesn't suit itself to a mailing list. Its just too hard to keep track of the different threads. We discussed moving things to a usenet group before but there wasn't much interest. Most people seemed to prefer a moderated format. >Curtesy is nice, but nobody should be incriminated if they do not offer it. I >think finding the truth using logic and good data is more important than issues >of individual ego. If a person feels offended, they should advise the moderator >enclosing the offending mail, and the list also. If *the list* agree the offender >should be removed. (I favour sharing decisions, not unilateral actions) Tom was constantly complaining to me about Laurie's posts. I didn't do much about them. If I was a better moderator maybe I would have been able to defuse the situation. I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation and didn't know what to do. Tom also complained to the list about Laurie's posts but that seems to have just gotten him more drawn in. For a mailing list like this to work I feel that courtesy is essential. I really don't want to have to get involved in personal squabbles. If people are courteous they should be able to work out their differences or at least agree to disagree. If they are discourteous it may not matter much if they are right because they are going to turn a lot of people off. If someone is discourteous it says to me that they are more interested in defending their ego than in discovering the truth. So to have a discussion that really gets to the truth it is necessary to be courteous. If you really are interested in getting to the truth there shouldn't be any ego involvement at all. John Coleman writes: > ... and I think it fair to warn >someone of their alleged indescretions first, in public, prior to removal. What happened was I was going through a number of posts Laurie had sent in and was trying to come up with a polite considerate way to tell him why I thought they were unacceptable and give him a chance to redo them. Then I thought, to hell with this. This guy is totally rude and inconsiderate. Why am I knocking myself out to be nice to him? I personally don't feel that he contributes much of worth. With Tom gone he is going to dominate the list. No one is going to be able to post without Laurie giving them the one and only truth as he knows it and you had better not disagreee. Forget it. I don't need it. I kept thinking of an op-ed piece I read awhile ago by some minister discussing Farakhan. To the argument many people have that Farakhan does say a lot of things that are true he replied that rat poison is 90% good corn. That was my gut feeling about Laurie. A lot of what he says is ok and may be accurate. But the overall affect is very negative. Unsubscribing him seemed like a pretty good solution. I wanted to open things up to get more people to post. With Laurie posting it wasn't going to happen. It was a pretty quick decision but I don't regret it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well thats my response to the complaints about unsubscribing Laurie. I suppose some people might find that it doesn't answer all the issues brought up and doesn't fully address others. They will be right. I just try to do the best I can with what I'm given. And Laurie is still around. I haven't somehow banished him from the internet. Anyone who wants to can always email him directly. Sincerely, Michael