In a message dated 98-11-02 20:27:19 EST, you write: Wes, <<Not really. But I did mention that if one has problems digesting a particular raw food, it can be a) blended or juiced, or b) not eaten at all...We don't necessarily need to resort to cooking it...Other options exist.>> Yes, my grandmother has trouble digesting things like corn and other tough raw foods, perhaps because she doesn't chew it into juice, and her stomach is not so young and healthy anymore, therefore, she doesn't eat very much of them, but she can drink a glass-full of carrot juice without a problem. So, yes, better to juice those carrots than eat them cooked, from what I can see. I can't see why anyone would logically cook them rather than juice them or throw them in a vitamix. It would be like taking a stack of $100 bills and burning them until you only had $100 left before going out on a shopping spree. A lot of people seem to heal on macrobiotic diets which are essentially 100% cooked from what I've seen. Then again, I went to a macro-biotic conference once and was not impressed with people's state of health. Nice people. Calm in a certain way from being vegetarian. Clean in a certain way. But they looked like they could really use raw food, and maybe some animal foods. A lot of them had horrible teeth, which was strange. I met Michio Kushi's son and he had the most horrible teeth I've ever seen, like looking a photo from Pottenger's book, only worse. Sunken chest. Nice guy. Some of them tried to convince me I should cook my fruit!!!! Some tried to convince me that eating raw foods only was bad, and that I needed some cooked foods. It was like some old episode of Scooby Doo or something. Everyone had been turned into cooked Zombies, and like good Zombies, they were trying to get me to be a Zombie, only I felt like the last and only sane, sober person on the face of the planet. I could see how satisfied they would have felt if I had pretended to eat some cooked food, and then consciously taken on their 'buzz'. Anyone who wants perspective on raw vs cooked might want to read books like Give Your Dog a Bone, by Ian Billinghurst, or talk to people who have used raw diets to help their pets recover from diseases. No belief systems with dogs. No placebos with dogs. Just reality and living bodies reportedly restored with raw foods... There must have been an advantage to cooking foods for people to think it up and adopt it years and years ago. Perhaps the body is overworked and harmed by the cooking, but perhaps other more acute problems are avoided. Can't munch down a lot of raw grains. Don't want to get sick every third time you eat raw meat from your wild kill in the hot jungle. But why would people cook meat when they can dry it? Anyone know? I saw a documentary on some tribe in South America somewhere and their custom was to thoroughly cook all their meat until all the blood was gone. Then the meat would be eaten over a period of days. Probably had a purpose beyond addiction to barbeque for it to become custom... Probably some form of safety factor... Aaron