Adrienne Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I don't know about the Bellevue diet, but I posted recently a quote from
>The Fat of the Land by Stefansson where he mentions that the organs were
>always given to the dogs.  This is the opposite of what I see mentioned so
>often on this forum as well as other forums.  I wish I could get a copy of
>the book (out of print) and read for myself which it is -- organs or no
>organs??!

Your quote didn't say that organs were ALWAYS given to the dogs. It
said "nearly always", "except the heart and kidneys". It's understandable,
at least when it comes to liver. I haven't measured it and I'm not sure but
I think I eat about half a pount of liver and then I'm satisfied for
seve
ral months in a row. If I'm not fantasizing then a couple of times I've
gotten a headache, dry skin and joint aches after eating liver. Sounds like
too much retinol. I guess I didn't listen carefully enought to my stop
signal, but maybe it was something else than the liver. Heart I can eat
more often.

In the same post you say that organ meats taste disgusting to you. Which
organs have you tasted and how were they prepared if I may ask? Were they
organic? It is not my intention to push you. Maybe your body just didn't
need them at the moment. I believe that when an organic whole food doesn't
taste good then one should not eat it and not worrie, but I also think that
at the same time it's important to separate the taste from other feelings.
I try to follow that rule but sometimes I overeat anyway. I personally
don't care at all about RDA.

A bit more about retinol. Here's a story from my copy of "N
utrition and
Physical Degeneration" by Weston A. Price:

"Another illustration of the wisdom of the native Indians of that far north
country came to me through two prospectors whom we rescued and brought out
with us just before the fall freeze-up. They had gone into the district,
which at that time was still uncharted and unsurveyed, to prospect for
precious metals and radium. They were both doctors of engineering and
science, and had been sent with very elaborate equipment from one of the
large national mining corporations. Owing to the inaccessibility of the
region, they adopted a plan for reaching it quickly. They had flown across
the two ranges of mountains from Alaska and when they arrived at the inside
range, i.e. the Rocky Mountain Range, they found the altitude so high that
their plane could not fly over the range, and, as a result, they were
brought down on a little lake outside. The plane then r
eturned but was
unable to reach the outside world because of shortage of fuel. The pilot
had to leave it on a waterway and trudge over the mountains to
civilization. The two prospectors undertook to carry their equipment and
provisions over the Rocky Mountain Range into the interior district where
they were to prospect. They found the distance across the plateau to be
about one hundred miles and the elevation ranging up to nine thousand feet.
While they had provision and equipment to stay two years they found it
would take all this time to carry their provisions and instruments across
this plateau. They accordingly abandoned everything, and rather than remain
in the country with very uncertain facilities and prospects for obtaining
food and shelter, made a forced march to the Liard River with the hope that
some expedition might be in that territory. One of the men told me the
following tragic story. While they were crossing the
high plateau he nearly
went blind with so violent pain in his eyes that he feared he would go
insane. It was not snow blindness, for they were equipped with glasses. It
was xeropthalmia, due to lack of vitamin A. One day he almost ran into a
mother grizzly bear and her two cubs. Fortunately they did not attack him
but moved off. He sat down on a stone and wept in despair of ever seeing
his family again. As he sat there holding his throbbing head, he heard a
voice and looked up. It was an old Indian who had been tracking that
grizzly bear. He recognized this prospectors's plight and while neither
could understand the language of the other, the Indian after making an
examination of his eyes, took him by the hand and led him to a stream that
was coursing its way down the mountain. Here as the prospector sat waiting
the Indian built a trap of stones across the stream. He then went upstream
and waded down splashing as he came
 and thus drove the trout into the trap.
He threw the fish out on the bank and told the prospector to eat the flesh
of the head and the tissues back of the eyes, including the eyes, with the
result that in a few hours his pain had largely subsided. In one day his
sight was rapidly returning, and in two days his eyes were nearly normal.
He told me with profound emotion and gratitude that that Indian had
certainly saved his life."

Fredrik