At 05:44 PM 4/12/97 -0600, you wrote: >I have _heard_ of raw folks getting along good with raw cheese, but I have >never met one (email of otherwise) who doesn't find it problematic. Another >vote here for raw butter: isn't it the fat in cheese which it so >attractive? Why not explore dairy with butter first before cheese? Cheese >is so very processed, but of course, I know, it keeps. > >Cheers, >Kirt Aha, now I see! No, I think it was the calcium and protein, vitA & D I consciously sought, as well. But now that you mention it, the Italians, beginning their day with a glass of olive oil (mediterranean diet), seem to thrive on the fat breakfast!(go figure in a quiet room).But why not, vs butter, particularly when unavailable? Do you know how difficult it is to find nutritional data on _raw_ food? We blythely assume (we are taught) that fat-soluble vitamins are heat stabile--but, is this absolute? How about at high temp. cooking? All those strange unhealthy molecules I'm learning about... So the next question becomes, WHAT problems? How does one know what to look for in this exploration, or is the damage "silent"? How does one get 1000-1500mg (M/F) calcium by food, not filled-pills, without dairy? Molasses?(that's a lot of otherwise empty calories). Dandelion tea? (Spring and summer only) Collards? (Fall. But every day?) Dulse? Kelp? Laver? I gag, it takes a great deal to achieve those mg's..Sardines? My point is, that to acheive these Ca++ requirements narrows the selection of food calories considerably, and the spice of life variety with it. One lays on calcium to excess until 35, then it levels to balance until age 40 at which time we _all_ lose more per day than is resorbed in the ever dynamic tissue reduction/rebuilding of this marvelous house we dwell in.This can be an aceceptable slow loss, or an unacceptable catastrophe. At least in this culture...and, we are living much longer now, you must consider.(One and a half million die /year of complications from hip fracture). It then behooves those of us who are biologically less dense of bone and who lose most (in childbearing and nursing) to take measures to prevent the drain imbalance, or face extreme measures later which are not fun. And do recall, Kirt, the concentration of estrogenic compounds in animal fat until those at the top of the food ladder---th-th-that's us, friend---get a dangerous load. ps: Though it is not like ambrosia, nay (!), I do not object to cod liver oil as I did before 40's! A point for instinctive selection...except, neither do adore it...;) Pat