Loren: >I know many people who similarly have reduced their daily caloric needs >to very limited amounts. > >I have one friend who after 5 years on a strictly raw vegan diet, now eats >one small meal every 4 or 5 days. She appears to be perfectly healthy, has >abundant energy, and show no signs of any problems. She has been eating >this way (or not eating, this way) for over a year. Tom: There is a thread re: calories over on the bulletin board of the living-foods.com website. In that thread, a nutritionist who works with and analyzes the diets of a clientele that includes many raw-fooders, reports that, based on the analysis of the diets of many raw fooders, a raw fooder must eat the standard calorie amount to avoid weight loss. Loren: >You need not believe anything I, or anyone else, says. Your own >experience is the key. If you continue to eat larger quantities of >food, your metabolism will stay high to burn it, and you'll continue >to need larger quantities of food. > >In every one of dozens of animal studies done, animals that are >"undernourished" live up to twice as long as the "normally" fed animals. Tom: The biochemisty of starvation is well-researched. The human body does indeed change in starvation; however there are lower limits (long-term) to energy intake - and these limits are far above the 1000 calories you claim. In the second paragraph above, you are being vague about calorie restriction. Yes, calorie restriction increases lifespan. But actual starvation is ultimately fatal. Loren: >Our beliefs are creative things, and control our reality. You may want to >ask yourself whether you are limiting yourself by the beliefs you have >chosen to embrace. Tom: Your beliefs don't make you immune to the laws of physics. Neither does eating fruit make you immune to the laws of physics.