Children and RPD

[Audrey]

How many people have children who they feed raw animal foods too? How is this generally accepted? Do you have to hide it?

[TylerDurden]

There are, funnily enough, a lot of rawist families doing RVAF diets together with their children. A good example is Jon C Fox a primal dieter(on rawpaleodiet not here), but GoodSamaritan is another. I suspect that a good quarter of all RAFers are families who all(or mostly) eat RVAF diets  together.

Most such families don't even bother to hide it, last I checked.

[reyyzl]

There's a lady on primaldiet friends.  She has two children.  They eat raw too.  She got divorced.  Her ex tried to keep the children by using the raw pork issue.  It didn't work.  She won custody.

[goodsamaritan]

How many people have children who they feed raw animal foods too? How is this generally accepted? Do you have to hide it?

The whole Japanese nation eats raw fish as staple food they call sashimi.

Italians get carpaccio in their restaurants.

French have steak tartar and their usual idea of steak cooking is several notches rarer than american standards. (I've been to france and usa).  In france, a medium steak is a rare steak in america.  And a rare steak in france is bloody raw in america.

Filipinos in the fishing towns that supply the japanese eat sashimi as well.  And eating fish and oysters dipped in vinegar is acceptable. These are restaurant menu items, even in a fast food of a mall. (called kinilaw)  Also fishermen eat raw fish on their boats. (but it is not acceptable for filipinos to eat raw land animals).

I grew up eating raw oysters dipped in a little vinegar and thought that is the way it should be, so my children eat raw oysters and clams just the same.  I thought the chinese filipinos were odd why they insisted on cooking oysters.

I'm proud telling people my children eat raw.  The reason is raw paleo diet, raw meat is curative.  And the children have experienced it first hand.  1 week of raw paleo diet was all it took to cure my 5 year old boy of a raging painful eczema.  Raw beef and raw beef muscle blood was instrumental in my 8 year old's tuberculosis cure. (looks good so far, will wait and see for a few more months)

[PaleoPhil]

...

French have steak tartar and their usual idea of steak cooking is several notches rarer than american standards. (I've been to france and usa).  In france, a medium steak is a rare steak in america.  And a rare steak in france is bloody raw in america.
...

Once again it's France. Damn, I'm getting to like France more and more.

[Michael]

Once again it's France. Damn, I'm getting to like France more and more.

France is indeed a wonderful country with an enviable culture.  Indeed, it's a country I'd very much like to settle down in at a future time.  I've spent alot of time there with french friends I have living in Paris and the Alps region as well as a German/Iranian girlfriend I had for a while who had lived and was studying in Paris since her parents fleed Iran during the revolution. 

My broad experience of modern French eating habits, however, has not left me with an indelible positivity.  In the main, they seem to live on white junk bread, highly processed foods, jams, margarines coffee etc etc.  They've been as badly affected as the rest of us sadly.  I hope you're not being given a false image PaleoPhil?!

How many people have children who they feed raw animal foods too? How is this generally accepted? Do you have to hide it?

Hi Audrey,  I have a 6 month old son who's currently solely breast-fed.  I'll be introducing him to solid food over the coming weeks but will, of course, be leaving it to his own discretion whether he chooses to taste or eat the finger food selections I intend offering.  I'll be including as much RPD foods as possible but this will be compromised by the fact that my partner is not following a RAF diet.  She is, at least, eating a Weston Price style diet and does include many RAFs such as raw liver, eggs, beef jerky, raw dairy etc.

RE: Feeding RAF to children being acceptable?  I'm interested in finding this out myself very soon!  I don't expect it's going to be an easy time and am expecting big issues with childminders, schools etc when the time comes.  But, I certainly won't be hiding the fact.  I'll be arguing my case and expect a strong, healthy and intelligent child will provide wonderful evidence of the groundless concerns and the positive benefits.

[PaleoPhil]

...My broad experience of modern French eating habits, however, has not left me with an indelible positivity.  In the main, they seem to live on white junk bread, highly processed foods, jams, margarines coffee etc etc.  They've been as badly affected as the rest of us sadly.  I hope you're not being given a false image PaleoPhil?!

I don't have an indelible positivity about anything. I'll provide some embarrassing explanatory background: I unfortunately used to be more negative about France, which partly explains the "Damn" exclamation I used (it was a sort of "Holy cow, I don't believe how much more interesting and positive France and the French contribution was than I had believed in the past"). I've developed less antagonism toward France, and more of an appreciation in recent years--especially from what I've learned in this forum, from a friend who traveled to France, from my recent research (including very eye-opening documentaries about "barbarian" history that I viewed recently), and possibly influenced also by the recent rapprochement between the US and French governments.

It's too bad that one can't be positive about something for a bit, whether it's the RPD or France or whatever, without negative reactions ensuing, though I know your concerns are well-intentioned Michael. Sure, I could detail some negatives about France, RPD and other things, but it seems to me that life is too short to not take a moment every now and again to smell the flowers instead of critiquing their faults.

Rather than point out where I agree with the faults in French dietary habits or add counterpoints about positive aspects of their diet or historical contribution to the development of the RPD movement right now, I'll just suggest folks take a meditative break from detailed analysis to relax and enjoy the sweet fragrance from the positives that Alphagruis, GoodSamaritan, myself and others recently shared about France, and about how lucky we are to have had very polite, friendly and informative contributions from our French and Instincto members. I don't mean this as a lecture, as I think GoodSamaritan is better at smelling the flowers than I am, and he could probably put it better than I have. So I guess I'm saying that I'll try to be more like GS for a moment, and hope that others will join me in that.

It's rather ironic that when a friend of mine who has been a life-long lover of the French language and France traveled there, she was surprised at how "primitive" it was, and developed a slightly less positive view of it, whereas my interest was piqued and my opinion began to do something of a reversal. I got a chuckle out of pointing out this irony to her yesterday: the more she and I learn about France, the less she likes it (she abhors germs and filth, prefers the luxuries of modernity over "roughing it" and is disgusted by my experiment with RPD and high meats) and the more I like it. Our positions on this at times seemed to have reversed. Whereas I was once the critic of France and she the defender, now she is the critic and I the defender. Granted, she still loves the French language and France, and I still have my qualms, but there has been enough of a reversal in recent years to make the irony rich.

[Michael]

It's too bad that one can't be positive about something for a bit, whether it's the RPD or France or whatever, without negative reactions ensuing, though I know your concerns are well-intentioned Michael.....

My intentions were, indeed, well-intentioned PaleoPhil.  As I said, I've had a lot of exposure to French culture and have a wonderfully positive residual impression to the extent that I hope to settle my family there one day.  I was certainly not being negative generally or negative about the French - merely explaining that the modern French diet is similarly bad as our own in the UK and yours in the US.

Glad to hear that your own position towards France has been reversed.  In a similar way, my own youthful impression was not wholly positive but it was grounded in nothing more than stereotypical nationalism.  Life exposure to the richness, diversity, integrity, pride, history, colour, intelligence and spirit of France and French culture has done nothing but develop and intensify a romantic passion in my soul.

[PaleoPhil]

My intentions were, indeed, well-intentioned PaleoPhil.  As I said, I've had a lot of exposure to French culture and have a wonderfully positive residual impression to the extent that I hope to settle my family there one day.  I was certainly not being negative generally or negative about the French - merely explaining that the modern French diet is similarly bad as our own in the UK and yours in the US.

Oh sure, I was thinking more in terms of the historical contribution to the development of dietary thinking that sees primitive/ancestral diets as generally superior to modern diets and the interesting traditions (like steak tartare) and points of light (like the meat-eating Instinctos).

As far as the single factor of which nations are the healthiest, the Nordic nations (especially Iceland and Sweden) and Japan/Okinawa seem to most consistently score in the top ten. Interestingly, they are all heavy consumers of seafood.

Does that necessarily mean that seafood is much healthier than land animals? I doubt it. I think the key is that seafood is one of the last categories of animal food that is still commonly eaten in large quantities which is wild (and thus has the healthy fats of wild animal foods). I eat both seafood and pasture-fed/wild land animals, so it's not that critical of a question in my case anyway.

[TylerDurden]

As far as the single factor of which nations are the healthiest, the Nordic nations (especially Iceland and Sweden) and Japan/Okinawa seem to most consistently score in the top ten. Interestingly, they are all heavy consumers of seafood.

Does that necessarily mean that seafood is much healthier than land animals? I doubt it. I think the key is that seafood is one of the last categories of animal food that is still commonly eaten in large quantities which is wild (and thus has the healthy fats of wild animal foods). I eat both seafood and pasture-fed/wild land animals, so it's not that critical of a question in my case anyway.

Perhaps. But the Scandinavian countries and Japan/Okinawa have had a very long tradition of eating raw (fresh or fermented) seafood, not just cooked. I suspect that even a little raw animal food in the diet can make a hell of a lot of difference especially if the plant-foods in the diet are mostly raw as well.

[alphagruis]

French have steak tartar and their usual idea of steak cooking is several notches rarer than american standards. (I've been to france and usa).  In france, a medium steak is a rare steak in america.  And a rare steak in france is bloody raw in america.

The same holds for cooked fish, which is usually minimally cooked in France to preserve the taste. When travelling and eating in other countries, the French usually complain against overcooking especially of fish and meat.
More generally the French possibly just pay more attention to "details" in food preparation than some other Nations. At least they used to and unfortunately the situation changes progressively as the "world economy" is established.

Most likely such traditional details in food preparation were important in the emergence of the famous "French paradox". Indeed it makes sense in terms of the quantity of heat generated toxins that a fish cooking time of say 2 minutes rather than 10 minutes generates roughly 5 times less AGEs i.e. results in a much less toxic food. When repeated year after year it might make a difference and imply less poisoning and delayed appearence of maladies like CVD or DM.    

[PaleoPhil]

Perhaps. But the Scandinavian countries and Japan/Okinawa have had a very long tradition of eating raw (fresh or fermented) seafood, not just cooked. I suspect that even a little raw animal food in the diet can make a hell of a lot of difference especially if the plant-foods in the diet are mostly raw as well.

Ah yes, thanks Tyler. I think seafood also tends to be eaten raw more commonly than land animals, though I'm not sure with those nations. Either way they get double the benefit--raw and wild--from at least the seafood.

[afroza]

Kids and RAF is a tough one when it comes to social life. For some familys it seams to work very well, I am so happy for them. This is my experinces, in short;
I have two sons, 5 and 1 year old, and I let them eat cooked foods when they see other people eat it, although I always try to explain what is healthy and what is not and what long term effects different foods have when you eat them (at least to my 5-year old, the youngest is too young for reasoning). I follow the Primal Diet, and my husband does too, for the most part. We live in a joined household, all in all about 15 people, and we are the only two eating raw, so the kids do eat cooked foods everyday with rest of the family (cooked meats, and some rice and bread, no veggies - they don´t like them). I feed them raw, fatty meats everyday and raw dairy (milk and butter) and they both take Blue Ice fermented codliver oil every day, I can´t get them to eat raw fish, unfortunately. I am not a fan of any supplements, but I must say that the fish oil saved my oldest sons teeth, or what little was left of them. I was a vegetarian for ten years before having him and nursed him for years, thinking I was doing him a favour, only the milk was of so poor quality, and he didn´t eat much else, so his milkteeth just rottened. Since I started giving him cod liver oil the tooth decay has completely stopped.
My oldest son goes to a pre school where he gets terrible lunches (only veg, mostly cooked starches like pasta or bread). I am not happy with the amount of cooked crap that my children encounters during the day, but I hope that the good stuff I give them will at least give their bodies usable nutrition for health and growth. I am all the time trying to find better solutions to these problems, I am not going to keep him in this school next year, for example. The family issue is a hard one to figure out though, I want them to have close relationships with rest of the family, their grandparents and cousins etc, but the stuff that this people eat sends shivers up my spine sometimes!
I think that as the children grow and experience the effects that different foods has on them, they will be able to choose wisely. I guess most of the people here never had anybody showing them how to eat RAF but they were intelligent enough to find this path themselves. I guess trying to be a good rolemodel is the stand I am taking on the parenting issue, rather than having a lot of rules. Strict rules often tend to get the opposite effect, if I remember my own childhood correctly:)

[PaleoPhil]

...My oldest son goes to a pre school where he gets terrible lunches (only veg, mostly cooked starches like pasta or bread)....

They don't provide any meat?

[afroza]

No, Phil. No meat. We live in Goa in India for the time beeing and most of the kids in his school have vegetarian parents who doesn´t like meat to be served in school. They are nearly all foreigners like me, and many of them are into yoga, spiritual practices or just being hippies. In any case, meat is a big no, no.

[PaleoPhil]

Wow, that's nightmarish. Is it a private school? Do they prohibit him from bringing meat to school? Is there another school you could send him to? What is the dental health and overall health of the children going to that school like?

[afroza]

Sorry for the delay, my internet connection is not working since the last two days.

My sons school has some good qualities, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't have choosen it. But the vegetarian mindset of the staff and parents are a problem for us (and for all the other kids, they are very emotional, being high on starches all day). I am more and more leaning towards making my own home school situation working, and keep it open to other children too, if other families in the area would be interested. And just do our thing. I am nervous at the thought of other people educating my kids, especially if their way of life is too, different from ours ("killing animals is bad karma" etc). We bought some land up in Kashmir, where my husband is from, earlier this year, and we will set up a small animal farm there and some tourist cottages, and I will probably try to get some school thing going on there as well. If you want good things I guess you have to do it yourself. Would be nice to send the kids to a nice outdoor oriented RAF school where they could explore nature and be creative! Maybe in the future such places will exist
Let's hope and work towards that!

[RawZi]

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xExPx-4Q0FA

    What beautiful healthy children, bless them, makes me teary eyed with happiness that there are healthy children around and more and more of them possible with the help of real food.

    Audrey, apparently the guy who made the http://www.giveittomeraw.com/group/rawmeateaters.

[RawZi]

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RigrSu_Rfbw

[goodsamaritan]

This is a good find Rawzi.  The followers of the Makers Diet book fame should all see this.

[PaleoPhil]

...

    Audrey, apparently the guy who made the http://www.giveittomeraw.com/group/rawmeateaters.

Unfortunately hardly anyone posts in that forum anymore. Someone who used to post there told me that most of the raw meat eaters' accounts were deleted because their views were not popular there. I don't know how true that is, but it is strange that there haven't been any posts since mine a while ago.

[TylerDurden]

RawZi was one of the people banned.

[reyyzl]

There's a lady on primaldiet friends.  She has two children.  They eat raw too.  She got divorced.  Her ex tried to keep the children by using the raw issue.  It didn't work.  She won custody.

Just in

The name of the book is The ... I'll be recounting how I was the ... PD parent ... to keep custody of my kids ... after Aajonus said, "The PD parent always loses." I NEED thousands of votes!!! I ask you and everyone to spread the word! (*)
THANKS!!!

*ask me and I'll tell you where to vote if you can't find it.

[reyyzl]

    http://www.youtube.com/v/54OGGE6zdXk