Not sure I follow your reason, logic, or common sense. If it was required to eat like to properly nourish like then cows couldn't exist at all because they eat grass. As far as I know grass doesn't have a liver, heart, spleen, or anyother organ like a cow. The argument that like nourishes or cures like is simplistic nonsense. You are correct that many ancient (and some modern) cultures believe this stuff, but it doesn't make it true. What is does do is line the pockets of charlatans peddling this stuff to the uneducated.
Herbivores naturally eat plants so that is not the same issue. However, as has been pointed out before, carnivores and omnivores, when eating animals, tend to favour eating the organ-meats first, implying that they have superior value. Indeed, there are cases where animals just eat the organ-meats and leave(usually in times of plenty - an example being those killer-whales who just eat the tongue of a whale calf as the grey whales go on their migration). Same goes for herbivores, they don't always just aimlessly eat any old plants, sometimes they will single out specific raw plants for consumption, preferring them over others, due to a need to cure a certain condition(re herbs) or just in order to get superior nutrition. In other words, someone with a helthy liver may well not need to eat liver and can get by on variety, but another person with a diseased liver is highly likely to benefit if they include raw liver in their diet. Now, if one was eating the liver of an alien being from the Andromeda Galaxy, one could claim that nutrient-ratios/dna was so widely different that this would be unhealthy or just not beneficial, but cattle, for example, are hardly widely different from humans. Even fish, as I recall, share 40% of DNA with humans.
Another obvious point re herbal medicine is that the consumption of herbs by a herbivore can influence the taste/nutritional quality of the resulting meat, dramatically. Gary has pointed out how his beef's taste, for example, is particularly influenced(positively) by getting his cattle to eat clover, for example. So, not only can we benefit from herbs, directly, by eating raw herbs, but we can also benefit, indirectly, from eating herbivores which feed on various raw herbs.
No change in tune. My statement was that I was no longer totally convinced that organ meats are necessary. I still eat them in the form of my pet food mixture, but my observation has been that many who are doing zero carb are doing quite well on muscle meats alone. I also know that people have survived for long periods on pemmican as their only food with no organ meats at all, and have seemingly maintained perfect health. This sort of puts me in the position of the dying gangster who doesn't believe in God, calling in the priest for Last Rights just in case - soooo, I continue eating my small bit of organ meats, just in case. But I'm also willing to point out that there is a good bit of evidence that my previous reasoning on the need for organ meats may be pure folly.
Well, like I said, the fact that wild animals (non-herbivores)favour the organ-meats, first, does make it rather clear that eating just raw muscle-meats is a bad idea. And given mine and others' concerns re the highly toxic nature of pemmican, I seriously doubt any supposed health-claims by such pemmican-eaters. I mean, lightly-cooked fat is one thing, but rendered fat is far, far worse, as animal fats are particularly affected by heat re the creation of heat-created toxins.
As regards organ-meats, I tend to lean on the theory that they're particularly needed for specific things like fertility/growth-rate etc.(it's interesting to note that western sperm-counts have fallen dramatically over time, at about the same time people gave up on eating organ-meats(albeit cooked).
I have little experience or real knowledge in this area so must defer to others. My only actual experience in animal self medication that I can think of is that my cat chews grass when she gets fur balls and this makes her vomit the mess (including the bit of grass she ate) all over the rug. If this qualifies for animal self medication then I must admit that my cat 'medicates' herself with grass. I haven't had a fur ball lately and when I drank wheatgrass juice or vegetable juices it just made me nauseous, dizzy, and gave me loose smelly stools. I decided to stop self-medicating based on this experience. I've felt much better ever since.
Self-medication among animals isn't merely limited to carnivores eating grass. It's a standard practice among all animals. There are many other theories re cats eating grass(eg:-
"In his book, "Cat World" Desmond Morris points out that it is the juices of the grass that cats are interested in. It is known that these juices contain folic acid, a vitamin that is vital to cats as it helps in the production of haemoglobin. For a cat to be deficient in folic acid would stunt its growth and may cause anaemia."
The field of animal-self-medication is now such a big thing that it now has its own name and is currently a big field of study:-
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/publications/zoogoer/1998/1/reallywildremedies.cfmIt's called "zoopharmacognosy" and it seems that animals use herbs for all sorts of reasons, to induce labour, to get rid of parasites, to speed up healing of wounds, to get rid of insects etc. etc. Now, a raw animal food diet can do a lot of things but not those.
I only pointed out that a diet of raw animal foods of all types seem to increase libido in everyone who tries it. I haven't personally noticed raw oysters doing much more for me than a diet of raw red meat and fat - but that is my experience, YMMV.
Lex
I agree that a RAF/RVAF diet can improve libido. However, the fact that so many RPDers report having an increased sex-drive when they include raw oysters, over and above what they normally feel on a RPD diet, that makes it clear that singling out specific foods for specific conditions makes perfect sense.
