>Are you bummed that instincto has not allieviated your condition?
>Autoimmune difficulties are said to be relieved by an instinctive regimen,
>no?

FIrst , somebody else other  than me  could get very hurt by a question like
that , somebody who has his health seriously challenged ( even  his life
threatenedin the case of many autoimmune diseases like  addison's) don't
need to be
reminded that they are bummed out ,they know first hand, they need more
caring and supportive energy!!
I don't get offended because i don't believe in health in a sick world, as
long as there is one person in the world  able to lack compassion,
understanding and loving attitude ,there is little chance for anyone of us
to be really healthy.
Instinctive eating alleviated my condition (and still does) and the
condition of the people who got dedicated to guidelines of instinctive
eating . I am going to repeat that my condition is a (degenerative)
autoimmune "PROCESS"
which goes toward the successive destructions of the endocrine glands ( one
person in the email list for addison is cumulating 14 diferents autoimmunes
disorder) after the adrenals and thyroid ( the most common) it is often the
insuline production that collapse, or the sexual hormones...
I really believe that i stopped the process and my health is getting better
as i age (not a common situation among my fellow addisonians .)
My adrenals were already unfunctionning  for 8 years *before* i started
instinctive eating , an atrophied gland is as unlikely to grow back as a leg
which has been cut off  or a severe scar on the skin to disappear.
A friend of mine ( over 70) have been asmathic all his life and had
emphysema too; after few years of instincto practice , no asthma was left
but  he still had to deal with the scars left in the lungs by the emphysema.
I understand that maybe you are yourself expecting too much from a change in
diet , and certainly more than any well rooted practitioner of instinctive
nutrition  will claim.
>
>>There is nothing strict about instinctive diet because the choices of
>>varieties of food are way greater than any neolithic diet present or past
>
>The regime is strict in that food quality is such a central issue. And in
>that no food should be denatured. And that only a raw food which tastes
>good (preferably great) can be eaten. There is plenty that is strict about
>instincto, methinks.

What is strict in eating  only what tastes good?
>
>"Strict" to me means according to firm rules/definitions>
>Sure it's a diet (which simply means what one eats). There is plenty of
>prescription in which foods are allowed. And there are food combining
>recommendations. And even a "rule" about not eating more than 10% animal
>foods if I understand the latest. Just because of the "rule" to eat only
>according to sensory attraction is a central theme in instincto hardly
>means it s not a diet, nor that is has no prescriptions.

I understand from the previous, that we are not talking about the same
thing, i personally never understood the guidelines of instinctive nutrition
as taking priority over the instinctive appeals and responses of the body
and i can see that those guidelines taken as rules can only lead to
rebellion in the subject of their authority.
Those guidelines are there to help the beginners and to save them time at
experimenting too scatterdly, not to be taken strictly as laws. I have been
myself very loose in my practice and it took me years to finally recognise
the well founded basis of those guidelines.
>
>>That is precisely the point of instinctive eating to ASK signs from the
body
>>not  to DECIDE from ideas about what it need.
>
She gets clear stops on veggies
>(raw or cooked) and animal foods (raw or cooked). She will not overeat
>dates either (which both her mother and I can easily do). She sometimes
>prefers raw beef (or marrow or carrots or whatever) and sometimes prefers
>cooked. She will sometimes start with raw and switch to cooked, or the
>reverse, and/or return to the raw after eating some cooked. Other times she
>has clear preference for one or the other. She could care less about
>instincto theory but sure knows how to find her pleasure. Including
>breastmilk.
I am glad that your daughter can have her freedom . I will be not so pleased
if you were enforcing the "instincto rules" on her. I am happy to see that
bringing some lightness and pleasure around food in your family became a
priority ( which is the goal of eating by instinct ).
That is nothing new that children are able to regulate the overall intake of
foods in a balanced way when they have free choice of food,
cooked or not (experiments have been made) . For example if you eat too much
salt, it is not unlikely that you  will  get thirsty and you will bring your
balance back at the best and at the quickest by drinking water, but if you
present a soda to this person the instinctive appeal for it will be there
too.Most likely the thirst will be responded to, yet only in a short term,
(the
sugar might trigger a need for more water later on). So for sure denatured
food can still be partly recognised and appreciated by the body but the
denaturation is aldutering the information in food which becomes unable to
satisfy in the most efficient way the needs of the body. ( as the soda in
my example will not be able to satisfy deeply the thirst)
THe purpose of instinctive  eating  is to avoid to eat too much salt  and
get too thirsty in the first place !

There is always good physiological reason behind any desire, even for things
as denatured as alcohol, drugs  or sugar ( they fulfill a need somewhere)
but i still need to hear from a recovering alcoholic how his drinking years
have beensatisfying and happy ( but they can say that they had some fun
while they
were doing it and some bad mornings too).
>
>>Something that is ever fluctuacting!
>
>Instinctos are often found to eat too many sweet fruits and too few veggies
>unless they neocortically change their diet. Some apparently also take
>Guy-Claude's word on eating "too much" animal foods (over 10%) and avoiding
>raw dairy products. In my instincto experience (about 8 years--5 of those
>with salads), the sharp and fluctuating attractions were limited to the
>beginning (perhaps improving on metabolic imbalances from my previous SAD
>diet). After that only newly found foods were "luminous". And after that I
>could eat most anything (raw paleo) with medium pleasure. (Except,
>importantly, RAF which I could rarely eat for more than a few days
>running.) Yet in time I ended up eating too much fruit, not enough veggies
>and RAF. Cooking animal foods (even of low quality) has been great for me.
>Same with veggies. Fruit (and avos) is not the staple it was when I was
>instincto and I feel I will be much better off in the long term on a
>cooked/raw paleo regime than I would be on instincto.

The phenomenon of loss of pleasure (of luminous phases) is a clear
indication that something in the diet is overeaten . It is why it is
important to eat mostly in the luminous phase. and stay there. Guy Claude
wrote that it was better to leave a meal unsatisfied than trying to get
to the luminous phase  when it is not there( the instinctive appeal becoming
more clear at the next meal). This has been my experience too.
This loss of pleasure was happening too for me with a cooked diet; i had
always to create new recipes more and more complex ( we see the flourishing
market of cook books ).

The aim of eating instinctively is to eat with happiness ( meaning what you
want and what you need is the same) and if you get that from the way you
eat, then that is wonderful .
Myself, i don't have any desire for cooked meats; it is too good raw. The
only cooking that i can appreciate tastewise is cooked tubers, any other
vegetables is prefered raw (which veggies do you cook?)
>
>And it is absolutely _great_ socially. Like you, I poo pooed the social
>aspects of instincto while practicing it. After opening up a bit with
>cooked food I can see how I was fooling myself, or perhaps had simply
>forgotten how much pleasure there is in sharing food beyond one's family.

TOday i shared a meal with over 20 other persons. Except for my family, none
was instincto or even raw food or paleo.  Still we shared some of the same
foods, and the pleasure of our company and we enjoyed it.

I am on the paleolist in the first place to share experience with peoples
aware of the dificulties that we imposed on ourselves with the agricultural
revolution and the food choices that we made, i thanks you for sharing your
experience with eating more vegetables and animal proteins (cooked and raw),
and your experience with eating less fruits than you used to because  i am
at the same place and am eating less fruits  and more animals fats and
vegetables than before( except that i prefer to eat them raw and so have no
need to denature them to be able to eat more of them)
For the overconsumption of fruits it is precisely to compensate the
relatively "too easy for the instinct" quality of domestic and selected
fruits, that the instincto guideline  on restraining on fruits  came about.
not to make it strict in one way or the other.
I am curious to hear about the experiences of people on that list when they
switch from a rich carbonhydrate diet to a rich protein and fat diet and the
relationships between lipids, proteins and carbonhydrates. I observed myself
many time that eating lot of animals products at a meal ask for more
concentrated form of sugar at the next ( like honey).
MOre fats seems to me leading to less need for sugar too.
Did somebody observed this kind of relationship between the diferents
categories of nutrients?
JEan-claude