Speaking only for myself, I found dried fruit to be highly addictive, difficult to stop eating, and it had very destructive effects on my health in all the ways carbs effect me negatively (see my journal if interested). I unfortunately didn't recognize the connection until much damage had been done. I wish I had never tried a piece of dried fruit. If only I had listened to Ray Audette instead of the many proponents of organic, unsulphured dried fruit and organic, unsweetened, no-flavors-added and freshly squeezed, pulp-rich fruit juices and smoothies. I figured "It's fruit, so it can't be as bad as Ray says, right?" Wrong! (in my case, anyway--even though I was eating the best dried fruit and fresh juices available). Now I eat less fruit than Ray does. Quite a turnaround. It's too bad I didn't frequent low carb forums much in the early days, or I would have encountered plenty of folks who don't do well on fruits and might have started earlier to more skeptically question the claims about them being good for everyone. Luckily Ray Audette and a few people at the Paleofood forum intrigued me enough about pemmican and raw meat that it led me to Lex Rooker and the rest is history.
I miss Lex, BTW.
This forum probably wouldn't have been enough of a warning for me, because there is quite a bit of self selection in forums. The low carbing Paleo and semi-ancestral types tend to congregate at the other forums and blogs, which leaves more fruit proponents here (though we still have some ZCers, like feisty Katelyn), which is pretty cool for me, because I check out both types of forums and still get both perspectives. I get much info about raw here and a few vegan/fruitarian forums and most of my info about VLC/ZC from a carnivore forum and a bunch of blogs, websites, etc. Once in a while I check out a raw Primal forum, but the people there ask me more questions than they answer. As my knowledge has grown I've cut back on my online reading. In the beginning I probably knew the least about raw, parasites, bacteria, etc., so I've spent the most time here learning that stuff and it has been quite fascinating.
Even fresh, raw, organic, ripe fruits gave me problems (even after I cut out all dried fruit and fruit juices) and continues to do so, which is unfortunate, because I love them and wish I could eat them without problems. The very first day I started cutting back on them I immediately started improving. I'm still addicted to them and it takes quite a bit of willpower to limit my intake to very low levels--mainly by going back to not bringing them into the house (once they're in the house I can't stop eating fruits until they're gone). I don't go as far as Katelyn does--I know that some people are thriving while eating plentiful fruit--but please people, don't assume that everyone thrives on fruit, because I, Katelyn, Lex, Dr. Kurt Harris and many others do not. If you check out raw fruitarian and vegan forums at all you'll see that even quite a number of them fare poorly on excessive fruits--even raw, organic, ripe, fresh fruits--despite promoting them!
So don't make the same mistake I did of assuming you can handle high quality fruits because "everyone knows fruits are good for you." It turns out that this isn't true for everyone. Find out what works for you as an individual and don't make any assumptions.
FortheHunt, do you know, or does anyone know, which has been in the primate and proto-primate diet longer, fruit or insects/grubs/etc.? I'm not sure. I think that most (or all?) primates eat insects and I know that the immediate ancestor of the primates was supposedly a largely insectivorous shrew-like animal, but perhaps it was descended from earlier fruit eaters? I seem to vaguely remember the latter, but my memory may be off. How far back were you thinking of and are you counting insects as meats or as a third category, and what about other plants like greens? Don't we have to factor in all the foods of our past, not just meats and fruits? I think Bear Stanley even considers humans to be more insectivores than anything, though he isn't a particularly reliable source.
It would be such a massive blow to human arrogance if it turns out that we fare better on insects, grubs, worms, caterpillars, etc. than any other category of foods.
