I prefer to scrape fish skin against my front teeth to get the fat and then spit out the outer skin.

...I was asking the reasons why you now continue to believe that vaccines prevent disease (even if you think there are better ways to prevent disease)

I don't understand the question. Of course vaccination does not "prevent" disease; it "works" when a dose of the disease triggers the development of acquired immunity. In other words, it "tricks" the body into mounting a defense for a specific pathogen. But maybe you didn't mean to say exactly that.

Are you implying that vaccination has been ineffective for its intended purpose, that it has no effect on the incidence of epidemiological outbreaks of diseases? I understand that the trade-off was getting a deliberate small dose that conferred immunity vs "catching" a full-blown case of that disease, and notice that I said trade-off: there are risks for each course.

Eve,
Diseases will never be eradicated. They often just change the names and morph. You cannot prevent PPL from being sick and it has nothing to do with the microbes.

When I used the word eradicated, I intended to employ its epidemiological meaning.

I'm glad you got things straightened out with your mother. Years ago, I got rid of allergies by eliminating wheat. That was before gluten testing, and I ended up never getting tested for gluten sensitivity because I had enough proof that gluten was the culprit. My daughter's family got a lot of allergy relief from eating strictly "paleo" foods (no neolithic foods such as grains or legumes). They still get frequent colds, which I attribute to the fact that they cook their foods.

I'm big on giving raw paleo a chance to work its wonders and then figure out what supplements or refinements are (or are not) necessary. My plan was to eat all raw for two weeks, but I started feeling dramatically better in two days.

What "pelvic floor function" are you trying to restore? I guess I'm thinking of urinary or fecal incontinence or erectile dysfunction.

In the Bristol Stool Chart, "4" is not hard to pass - it is formed yet soft. Even a "3" passes easily, but it is not as soft. If you are calling your "4" hard-to-pass, then you are misunderstanding the chart. A "1" or a "2" may look smoother than the chart, but hard-to-pass is the big identifier.

I think your brother has a good idea. You'll never know how good it can get until you try raw, unprocessed, high-quality foods.

But another thing I want to say is, "Are you always this high-strung about stuff?" I know, it's a harsh question, but you come across as all tied in knots, and your intestines will mirror your anxiety in terms of poor digestion. You may be one of those people who have to let it all go - all the anxiety about health and diet - before you get the results you want. I'm like that in some ways - if I overthink what I eat, I go crazy. If I just define my "diet" as whole foods, I don't get stuck in overthinking. Then, when it's mealtime, I don't cook my food. Simple.

P.S. Miller's shipping to California is quite costly. but their product prices are good. Just a pro and a con.

Eveheart,
Did you watch the video?

No, I'm familiar with Dr. Moulden elsewhere. I don't dispute the danger of vaccines. I do not doubt that the single-germ theories of diseases are dead wrong. On a personal level, my sister was identified in an early "group" of disputed live Sabin vaccine-related illnesses, and she survives to this day with some terrible side-effects. However, I believe that, even to this day, the risk of disease is much higher than the risk of vaccine if the disease rose to epidemic levels, and I see the trade-off at a different point than the anti-vaccination group sees it.

I also think there is a danger in changing horses in the middle of the stream: abandoning vaccination prior to eradication is unwise IMO unless "all" of us start living disease-resistant lifestyles. I just don't see any great rush to avoid the real causes of disease, and until a safer "magic bullet" comes along, we should use the one (vaccination) that seems to be eradicating diseases without some miraculous shift in human nature.

Why moderation? Do you believe fiber is necessary?

I have that same one word: moderation.

Not just moderation in fiber intake, but in anything.

After you establish a moderate and consistent diet, your gut will make the necessary microbial adjustments to handle what you eat.

If you want a paleolithic rationale for eating some fiber, imagine what a paleo guy would do if he found a tasty leaf or flower or root or fruit. And if this p.g. lived where leaves and flowers and roots and fruits are abundant, he would eat those fibrous foods without counting soluble and insoluble. We are still that way: I remember as a child knowing every good tasting grass and weed on my walk to school, and I learned the good ones on my own. So, I think it's in our nature to nibble on plants, and that means some fiber can go down the hatch.

Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm http://www.polyfacefarms.com/visit/

Oh, I see now - the missing link must be how he set up a fan and kept the ants out. I made a dryer exactly to spec a few years ago, and I found that the convection current's updraft (basically, the heat rising from the lamp to the hole in the top) was sufficient to vent off the moist air. I should add that I did this in a very dry climate with low humidity levels.

Espirito, I do understand your primary concern with sex drive, and with brain fog. But here and there you list what you are eating, and I see that you are not eating a paleolithic diet, let alone a raw paleo diet. This stands out when you mention eating rice (a cooked neolithic food) and canned tuna (a cooked food). You did mention earlier that you were following a paleo diet, but I see that you are not, so I thought I would ask about this. My own perspective is that it is more expeditious to establish health with a raw paleo diet that to cure the ill effects of neolithic eating with bio-hacking schemes.

Re 70% cacao: this is as sugary a form of chocolate as you can find! You can look at the label for carbs, which will be mostly sugar, and figure that 25g of carbs is equivalent to a banana.

If you are certain you want to eat chocolate, my daughter recommends raw cacao nibs, although I think they taste like pencil shavings. You can also get 90% cacao with a negligible amount of sugar, or bakers unsweetened chocolate (if you like bitter foods) with no sugar at all.

I buy unsweetened raw cacao powder to make smoothies for my grandchildren.

You can find a hilot if you are near a Philippine community in the US. We have them here in the SF Bay area. Other traditional massage healers are available in most Asian communities in the US. I've been treated by massage healers from Korea and northern China that I find by asking around.

Now that I no longer live in the UK but landlocked Austria, I too am finding that raw seafood is way too pricey - I only buy small amounts(all priced at c. 5 euros per 100g!) and only buy the best I can get of the wildcaught stuff - even then, it is less than ideal as c.99% has been prefrozen prior to arrival in Austria. However, I was under the impression you lived in California? Surely living in a State right next to the Pacific Ocean would make raw seafood relatively cheap? Then again, such a large State is bigger than many European countries so that someone might well be living 100s of kms away from shore yet still be in California(I think?).

I can drive to the coast in 30 minutes when there is light traffic, but the road is often crowded. My son has been known to show up with all sorts of seafood from the Pacific and inland rivers, but for everyday eating, most foods go through the enormous distribution system. Even when I lived in the middle of fresh vegetable fields, I couldn't buy a single head of fresh local lettuce in town unless it had been shipped to the city and than back to the grocery stores.

For reference, California is about the size and shape of Sweden - and if you put the south of California at Nice FR, the northernmost part would be well north of London.