Felt it unfair to leave it at that, so here was some of my thoughts:
1. Are you referring to what he writes about in his book, "We Want to Live?" I know he talks about being confused by all the seemingly conflicting and contradictory information out there on nutrition (I'm sure most of us here can relate) and deciding that if he were ever going to learn about what truly cultivates health, that he'd have to go live in the wild and learn from the animals based on how they lived, and learn from native groups as well. AV says he stayed with several native tribes for periods of time including the Inuit in Alaska. He said all of the tribes told him to eat raw meat to get well. Apparently he thought they were just trying to trick him into poisoning himself because maybe they were wanting to get revenge on the "white man," haha.
Pure bunk. There was so little info provided that it is all highly dubious. When he's being honest, he usually provides more data.
2. I think AV said he had fasted many times for various periods of time, but that his 40 day fast was one of the longer or longest. I know someone else who said he fasted for 40 days. I don't think it's implausible that Jesus' 40 days in the desert had inspired others to do the same, or similar.
Either way, AV had a "Jesus" complex. But the whole additional coyote nonsense makes it clear he was spouting tall stories. Since when do wild coyote packs give humans raw meat? I could understand a coyote stealing from human garbage dumps etc., but this is ridiculous.
3. If you read AV's books, newsletters, and Q and A gatherings he'd hold, he mentions various experimental research that he's conducted over many years - he'd say he's always experimenting with something or other and discuss what he was currently doing. But his experiments are fascinating, and there isn't any research out there that I'm aware of like the experiments he'd conduct. Yes he claims the lab that he used to analyze his samples burned down - says he paid over $1.5 mil to have this work done.
Even AV admitted, at one point, that he was neither rich nor destitute. And the arson guff is too convenient.
4. What you're saying here doesn't deal with his integrity or lack there of, but if I remember correctly he would say that people rarely have "true" raw dairy allergies. He would emphasize working with dairy instead of avoiding it, such as drinking at room temp (cold milk can create adverse reactions), adding raw honey to aid its digestion, limiting consumption to smaller quantities (he emphasized how it could be due to detox, or body rejecting it temporarily due to digestive issues, etc.), and fermenting it (e.g., kefir), etc. So there are quite a few things one can do before rejecting it based on the conclusion theres an allergy to it. And maybe you're right that he took into consideration how its easier for most people to do than raw meat as well.
He told me, flat out, that a raw dairy allergy was absolutely impossible via e-mail. As regards the honey, room-temperature stuff etc., many people such as myself have tried all of them and inevitably failed with them.
I totally get your skepticism about AV as some of his claims and stories do appear to be pretty..shall we say outlandish, or implausible? But is this basis enough to presume he is dishonest and not being truthful? I think its too easy to dismiss him based on this alone. I say look at his work in depth and judge his work based on how well it appeals to your sense of reason, (maybe intuition) and most importantly if it actually works!
I never viewed AV as being a total loss. I ages ago referred to him as "half-charlatan, half-genius" and still do(well, OK, 90% genius, 10% charlatan!, these days). AV was absolutely right on the issues of raw, "high-meat", enzymes, bacteria, and a number of others. I'm still, though, undecided as regards AV's stances re parasites and possibly 1 or 2 other minor issues. My main(only) gripe is that he advocated a very unnatural raw diet involving too much raw dairy, raw coconut cream, raw veggie-juice and other non-palaeo stuff. I realise that he was, in this regard, trying to create more converts. As regards, the references to native tribes, the 40-days-fasting a la Jesus, the burning lab etc., I don't view that as harmful, really, after all every diet has its ,er, "mythology", such as the Weston-Price Diet, the Stefansson Diet, the vegan diet etc. etc.
While my diet has for years been, more or less, a raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet, I am extremely grateful to AV and Guy-Claude Burger, as, without them, I would never have even found out about RVAF diets, and both provided a lot of the data I needed to recover my health.
