One more picture that says a lot about how my mouth opening has improved.

As I said (unfortunately no picture), I couldn't quite (or only just with some pain) get a teaspoon into my mouth sideways, before I started this.  Now I can get it in with about a thumb's width (nearly 2cm?) to spare (as graphically demonstrated just a minute ago, picture below!   ):

Here's a better one:

Wilco.  Here is that photo:

I used to regularly eat in McDonalds years ago.  Once I was sitting there in a McDonalds, fat and lathargic, when a super-healthy, vibrant mate of mine saw me through the window, laughed and pointed, and came in to join me.  He didn't want a Big Mac.  With a twinkle in his eye he said that he liked to come into fast food joints now and then "to watch people eating their depression pills". 

For some reason, what he said stuck, and I've never had one since.

I'm seeing my orthodontist next week so I'll ask them about putting photographs/models on the web.

Hi wodgina

I don't have "before and after" photos, but my orthodontist does.  I've seen them, and because there is no scale, they are hard to compare, although you can see the gaps appearing between teeth.  (To my eye - the general feel is that things appear to be deteriorating - moving from a nice (but very small) horseshoe of teeth with no gaps, to a more spread out curve with lots of random gaps.  But that appearance is deceptive - it all feels a lot better and roomier, gaps and all.)

More interestingly, I have plaster models of my original teeth/palatal arches.  I think when we are finished we will take more physical models for the retainer, and we'll actually be able to measure the increases between the two plaster models.  Maybe my orthodontist could photograph both sets of models side-by-side, so they can be directly compared in a photograph.  I'll ask them, but I don't know when that stage happens - it might not be until the very end, in about two years.

EDIT:  Also we are using something called a modified ALF.  It has a lot of plastic structure that the teeth bite on to provide sideways movement forces, and is a lot meatier than the wire ones I see in the photos on sites about ALFs.

Worth a bump.  I have just written an update on the other thread about approaching my first year of using ALFs:

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/a-l-f-where-to-find-them-and-how-to-get-them/msg62838/#msg62838

Just to add some detail, I think they fasted them in a jar, kept in the dark, with air holes and damp cotton wool/a rag to keep them alive, moist and comfortable.

I remember reading somewhere that the SAS eat worms on survival training in the UK.  Basically they dig them up, then fast them for a few days until they've stopped excreting soil.  (Same with eating snails safely, I believe - fast them until they stop excreting.)  Then, of course, they cook them and put them in soup.  One guy described worms as tasting like bacon rinds.  He said it was actually one of his favourite meals - to his wife's horror!

I suppose RPDers could fast them until they are empty of soil, then dry them out on a stone in the sun, and have them like beef jerky.

I also read in that Victorian book I mentioned on another thread about insects http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Not-Insects-Vincent-Holt/dp/0946014124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295356736&sr=8-1, that rustic old Victorian gardeners would pop certain grubs in their mouths and eat them as they dug them up.  (I can't remember which ones, but I've just repurchased the book (I gave the old one away), so maybe I can find out soon.)  Plus, when they were ill they would eat a live woodlouse rolled up in a ball, and call it a "pill".

Are those his? They are horrible on all levels. Good thing he didnt.

No, I was just kidding.  I think he did some sort of innocuous watercolours.  Quick Google, and here's one:



Quite nice, actually.

Imagine how the world would be if he had become an artist instead.

The key to this whole debate is statistics.

One of the mainstays of Paleo diets is that we are not adapted to modern food.  Well adaption is a process that occurs over time.  In a few hundred million years, given enough competitive pressure ("death without progeny" for the "failures"), everyone would be very well adapted to pizza and coke.  Perhaps athletes are the first few people "breaking through" genetically - "mutants", as goodsamaritan suggested, for want of a better word.  (And ignore the negativity in that word - if it is a positive adaptation, it is a great place to be - we are all ultra-lucky "mutants".)

Perhaps some sort of futuristic superintelligence, that could trace and understand the relevance of every atomic movement in the body, could even see and comprehend the changes.  We can't, nor have we even looked.

Much more important is the pure statistical argument.  I'd guess at an outside there are a million paleo eaters in the world; maybe ten thousand raw paleo eaters; very few long term.  I'd guess nearly all of them were forced onto it through health problems of some kind.  (I used to joke that everyone in health shops looked unhealthy; same reason.)  The number of second generation raw paleo must be countable on one hand (and are likely the descendants of the same people with health problems).

Now what are the odds that that handful of people could compete with the cream ("cream" doesn't even cut it - you can see cream - try and see fifty thousand or so "elite" athletes in a milk bottle of 7 billion parts!) of a worldwide gene pool, when that cream are likely to have indeed made some of the early adaptations needed to deal with the worst of their environmental (dietary) change?  To all intents and purposes: Zero.

(Meanwhile, I'll make the best of myself.)

Thank you both.  Nice to see you too.   

Ioanna, there is some sort of strange supernatural guidance going on (no matter how daft "getting drunk" sounds, it felt like a unique, purposeful life passage - hopeful one that needs no repetition), so it doesn't surprise me that there might be psychic forerunners.  All through my life I feel as if I've suddenly been delivered into new bands/groups of people, who all seem to be there for a reason.

It's a fleeting thing - it doesn't last - but just for a while, everything seems to be running hot.  Synchronistic, times of blossoming.