Dean Esmay wrote:
>
> While I do not dispute that corn is carcinogenic, I have been asking Ray
> for months to provide me a reference to back up that point.  Do you have
> one, Troy?
>
> As for the rest: while corn syrup may indeed be a potent carcinogen, I
> repeat that if you are talking about two ounces taken once in an entire
> year, it is a lot to get worked up over.
>
> As for chaos: the suggestion that the human body is a chaotic system is
> interesting, but I think it's far too possible to romanticize chaos
> mathematics excessively.

  I
> have seen no reason to suggest that going onto a natural diet and then
> abandoning it for a very short and minor deviation is highly likely to
> result in complete ruin.
>
> Ray Audette, our brother who invented Neander Thin, has admitted in print
> that every once in a while he cheats and has himself a little Haagen-Dasz
> (which I believe I'm mis-spelling).  He also got caught out once in an
> interview with a reporter in which he went ahead and ate a little bit of
> deviled egg at a restaurant even though he knew it probably had some
> vinegar and soybean oil in it from the mayonaise.  Philosophically I have
> no trouble with this, nor do I see any hypocrisy to it; life's too damn
> short to be so religiously anal about any diet that you never, ever, under
> any circumstance make even the tiniest deviation.
>
> On the other hand, I am sympathetic to the view that it's better to err on
> the side of caution and advise people to be as strict as they possibly can
> be.  The road to ruination is often that small deviation that we allow to
> grow into more and more deviations to the point where we've effectively
> abandoned what we set out to do.  This -is- a serious issue.
>
>
The Ames quotation is listed in references section in NEANDERTHIN.
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy in front of me or I would gladly give
you the information.

There is nothing romantic about the mathematics of chaos theory. Just
try reading a basic text on complexity/non-linear dynamics. Nor is there
anything romantic about the notion that the human body is a chaotic
system. Chaos theory says that there is order to be found within seeming
randomness. Chaos is always a pattern yet to be perceived. The problem
with predicting the behavior of a chaotic system is the inability to
account for all the variables in the system (which is why the weather
and the economy are so hard to predict-- the human body is,
proportionately speaking, as complex a phenomenon as either of these
examples). One minor change in a variable can upend the entire system.

The variables which the science of the human body can take into account
are miniscule in number in comparison to the actual number, which we
don't know. There is always more to be learned. But chaos never says
that just because a system displays complex behavior that it is totally
random and without pattern.

The mathematics of chaos theory, while complicated and beyond the grasp
of a layperson, is legitamite and more realistic than most calculus
based science. For a futher explanation of chaos theory and its
application to the human body, I recommend a visit to Art Devaney's
website devoted to his book EVOLUTIONARY FITNESS:
<http://www.socsci.uci.edu/econ/personnel/devany/EvFitTOC.html>

Please understand that when my co-author Ray eats ice cream--and we're
talking about once every five years...if that-- he becomes incredibly
sick. Ray has also been known to be rendered physically incapacitated
(i.e., unable to walk) by the ingestion of a single corn chip or two
aspirin bonded with corn starch. A small piece of cheesecake will render
him unconscious for many hours. We have seen similar drastic effects in
lots of would-be NeanderThins as the result of small inputs of forbidden
fruit, regardless of whether they ate the forbidden fruit by choice or
accident.

Each of us on NEANDERTHIN learns what his or her body can and cannot
accept in the way of minor cheating. Admittedly, eating a small amount
of forbidden fruit once in six months or a year is unlikely to have a
severely debilitating effect. My seeming stridency on this topic comes
from my reluctance to encourage any cheating on the part of NEANDERTHIN
neophytes. When I am asked for advice, I am very concerned about the
potential for backsliding. Ultimately, from a philosophical standpoint,
these decisions are not right or wrong. There are just choices to be
made and consequences to be accepted. If someone chooses to exercise his
right to ingest a unnatural substance... well, I'll just wish him the
best and go on to more important matters.

Finally, what to one person may be anal retention may to another be the
maintenance of personal integrity (i.e., applying one's understanding of
truth as fully and consistently as is possible).

Troy Gilchrist <[log in to unmask]>
Co-author, NEANDERTHIN: A CAVEMAN'S GUIDE TO NUTRITION
<http://www.sofdesign.com/neander>