Explain Instincto Diet Fully

[Paleo Donk]

[PaleoPhil]

I do wonder if those RPDers who mention they are underweight, are actually at their normal weight, but won't admit it, due to bodybuilding concerns.

In my case everyone else tells me I'm underweight, though I do have a little flab on my belly they usually don't see, so it's not just a figment of my imagination or the result of some bodybuilding fantasy. Robb Wolff even said that he was "emaciated" when he was at a weight and height that was less thin that I am now--though his view is probably a little skewed by working in the bodybuilding/fitness field. I'll even send you a photo of myself if you like, so you can judge for yourself. Rather than lose weight on RPD, since starting it I vary between 5 - 10 lbs. heavier. I see this as a sign of improved health in someone who was in poor health, with poor digestion and a damaged gut, and still has a ways to go.

[cherimoya_kid]

A Bear with the faculty to call Honey Pacifica would eat more honey than it needs in its diet.

ROFL

The idea of this just struck me as really funny.

HP--"Hello, Honey Pacifica."
Bear--"Roar!  MOAR!"
HP--"Oh, hi, Bear...your credit card is maxed out.  Do you have another one?"
Bear--''ROAR!!  MOOOOOAR!!!!"
HP--"I'm very sorry, but we are going to need another card."
Bear--"Screw it. I going fishing."
 
 

[alphagruis]

I disagree. A lot of the time, our instincts are not truly natural - whereas wild animals seem to instinctively find the right kind of nutrition for most of the time.

Not even in the case of wild animals is their health and balanced diet merely the result of their ability to select food and limit its intake by means of innate coding of taste and smell functions.  What limits their intake for instance is largely a matter of environmental constraints or limited availability of food in natural biotopes as well as many many other factors.
Moreover there is always an alimentary culture i.e. animals do learn from their mother at weaning what to eat , when, how to find it etc.

Balanced diet and health in the wild is an emergent phenomenon that cannot and by far be reduced to any intrinsic capability or instinct of the animal.

This definitely falsifies instincto.


Current evidence for self-medication in primates: A multidisciplinary perspective
Michael A. Huffman *
Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Aichi, Japan
email: Michael A. Huffman (huffman@pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp)

Abstract

The study of self-medication in non-human primates sheds new light on the complex interactions of animal, plant and parasite. A variety of non-nutritional plant secondary compounds and nutrient-poor bark is found in the primate diet, but little is yet known about the possible medicinal consequences of their ingestion. Recent studies of the African great apes support a hypothesis in progress that the non-nutritional ingestion of certain plant species aid in the control of parasite infection and provide relief from related gastrointestinal upsets. Detailed behavioral, pharmacological and parasitological investigations of two such behaviors, bitter pith chewing and leaf swallowing, have been conducted on three East African chimpanzee populations, but they are now known to occur widely among all chimpanzee subspecies, as well as bonobos and lowland gorillas. For both bitter pith chewing and leaf swallowing, selection of the same plant species tends to occur among neighboring groups of same ape species. These local cultural traditions of plant selection may be transmitted when females of the same species transfer into non-natal groups. However, selection of the same plant species or species of related plant genera by two sympatric ape species or between regional populations of great ape subspecies strongly suggests a common criteria of medicinal plant selection. This and the intriguing observation that the same medicinal plant is selected by apes and humans with similar illnesses provide insight into the evolution of medicinal behavior in modern humans and the possible nature of self-medication in early hominids. The occurrence of these and other specific self-medicative behaviors, such as fur rubbing and geophagy, in primates and other animal taxa suggest the existence of an underlying mechanism for the recognition and use of plants and soils with common medicinal or functional properties. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 40:171-200, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

[TylerDurden]

All that study shows is that chimpanzees instinctively seek out various herbs in order to get rid of parasites that they would get via natural, raw foods. They naturally increase the range of their diets even with respect of parasite-infested foods, for survival purposes.

[TylerDurden]

In my case everyone else tells me I'm underweight, though I do have a little flab on my belly they usually don't see, so it's not just a figment of my imagination or the result of some bodybuilding fantasy. Robb Wolff even said that he was "emaciated" when he was at a weight and height that was less thin that I am now--though his view is probably a little skewed by working in the bodybuilding/fitness field. I'll even send you a photo of myself if you like, so you can judge for yourself. Rather than lose weight on RPD, since starting it I vary between 5 - 10 lbs. heavier. I see this as a sign of improved health in someone who was in poor health, with poor digestion and a damaged gut, and still has a ways to go.

If you do indeed have a little extra flab on the stomach, that would indicate that you were a little above your ideal weight, IMO.

[alphagruis]

All that study shows is that chimpanzees instinctively seek out various herbs in order to get rid of parasites that they would get via natural, raw foods. They naturally increase the range of their diets even with respect of parasite-infested foods, for survival purposes.

I don't think so Tyler.

[Iguana]

As for weight-gain, raw foods seem to constantly cause weight-loss, with the sole exception of raw dairy(and possibly) raw fermented  grains.

Our member Diogene wrote in msg35742 that he recovered from 32 or 34 kg    to 54 kg thanks to the practice of instinctive nutrition – his instinct led him to eat exclusively meat during 2 months.

[Iguana]

What limits their intake for instance is largely a matter of environmental constraints or limited availability of food in natural biotopes as well as many many other factors.

Of course there are cases where a food is in limited availability, but there are also a lot of cases where the amount available is largely over what an animal or man can ingest in a single meal. When our ancestors killed an elephant or an hippopotamus, I doubt that a few of them could eat it all at once. The same applies on seashores where are abundant mussels, oysters, clams or other seashells as well as seaweeds. And when fruits are ripe on a tree, there’s also often more than an animal or human can eat at once. Fallen mangoes cover the ground under some trees in season. Even a single jackfruit (up to 30 kg) is more than one could eat in a meal. A sea turtle lays about 120 eggs: would you eat’em all at once if you found the nest ? We should not forget that nature provided a lot of food before we destroyed most of it.

Moreover there is always an alimentary culture i.e. animals do learn from their mother at weaning what to eat, when, how to find it etc.

It’s clear that both instinct and training converge and do not exclude each other mutually.

Francois

[KD]

Of course there are cases where a food is in limited availability, but there are also a lot of cases where the amount available is largely over what an animal or man can ingest in a single meal. When our ancestors killed an elephant or an hippopotamus, I doubt that a few of them could it all at once.

precisely why the food consumed is not chosen in terms of what is necessary but what is available? in nature this turns out to be roughly the same and adequate for survival, whether its always the ideal for thriving is a completely other conversation but most importantly animals or primitives do not have the full spectrum at each moment to choose. They might eat per instincts, but they don't eat with the idea that they will have such wide choices in the future in a comfortable controlled setting. for beings in an artificial situation, whether they be toxic or 'pure' humans, or completely feral animals, if you have the widest spectrum of food available or the narrowest, it distorts the picture. Fill a box/fridge with junk foods, fill it with natural foods, it does not matter there is no way an animal unleashed on it will eat in the way of an instincto.

as for Diogene, the healing potential for this diet is not in question - by me anyway, but only the idea that the ultimate 'decision' of what to eat is based on 'instincts' and not within the range of ideas and desires and is less artificial or better than being guided by 'nutrition' or volume or theory any other mental process. Sense of healthfullness might be changed by poor conditions and genetics and can be improved, but the decision is ultimately based more on the learning/cognitive end or pure desires than what may to have to do with what is healthy or unhealthy or in the chosen or dismissed in type or quantity. Also Diogene mentions himself that he plateaus in weight, (at an extremely low weight at that) I think the argument was about maintaining healthy weight, not that raw foods were some kind of continuous weight loss. Even raw vegans can maintain low levels of weight or recover from fasts on purely fruits and vegetables. to me, eating 2 months of meat seems to defy this concept altogether, unless he was deciding from all the natural meals still on a day to day basis which surely would be alot of thrown away food, and likely plucking the idea from somewhere that he might be in need of the meat and meat alone.

[alphagruis]

And when fruits are ripe on a tree, there’s also often more than an animal or human can eat at once. Fallen mangoes cover the ground under some trees in season.

I've told you before and this is my last attempt and hope you'll grasp it. This excess of mangoes is temporary in nature and contrary to instincto dogma there is no need for a so-called "instinct" that actually keeps its intake to meet the strict needs during this period. The paleo humans or animals gorged on such fruit and ate much more than they needed as modern humans tend to do but our ancestors did it only temporarily. Most of the year there are no mangoes at all and over a one year period they do not overeat fruit and sugar and everything is OK. In constrast, if in civilized especially Burger Château de Montramé environment with mangoes or other sweet fruits available all year round,  telling poeple as instincto does,  they can eat fruit "until stop" every day all year round results usually in a  dietary disaster similar to vegans with not enough animal food and systematic overeating of sugar.
The fondamental "error of reasoning" of instincto or Burger is to assume that evolution has to optimize intrinsic coding of smell and taste in an animal to restrict intakes to strict needs. In fact it is quite sufficient that the whole system (animal+ environment with its constraints) be optimized by evolution to result in health and balance. This point of what's the selection entity in Darwin's natural selection view is a well known problem completely overlooked by Burger.
In other words our intrinsic attraction with respect to sweet tasting food (rare because seasonal) is actually much too strong to ensure a balanced (in terms of sugar intake) diet by itself. We have to limit fruit intake by means of conceptual intelligence. There is nothing like "instinctive" or better intrinsic regulation in this respect.

This definitely falsifies the instincto dogma.

[Iguana]

precisely why the food consumed is not chosen in terms of what is necessary but what is available? in nature this turns out to be roughly the same and adequate for survival, whether its always the ideal for thriving is a completely other conversation but most importantly animals or primitives do not have the full spectrum at each moment to choose. They might eat per instincts, but they don't eat with the idea that they will have choices in the future. for beings in an artificial situation, whether they be toxic or 'pure' humans, or completely feral animals, if you have the widest spectrum of food available or the narrowest, it distorts the picture especially if you make the initial choices. Fill a box/fridge with junk foods, fill it with natural foods, it does not matter there is no way an animal unleashed on it will eat in the way of an instincto.

When I open my fridge, my cat comes running and immediately wants to reach for the meat. He doesn’t care for vegetables nor for fruits since he’s a carnivore: his instinct tells him, I didn’t have to teach him that he is a carnivore…

Someone in good health practicing instinctive nutrition  can of course be ok with what is available and do not necessarily need a broad choice everyday. If there are figs on the trees and oysters on a nearby beach, I can thrive on it for some time since I like both. If I’m on a tropical island and have just a jackfruit for my lunch and a big fish for my dinner, that’ll be more than enough. If I’m on an islet where are plenty of seabird’s eggs to eat and seawater to drink, I’ll be fine with it for a while! But my instinct will prevent me from eating coral, grass, tree palms or leaves or anything toxic for me.

A broad choice is useful, at least when one begins to eat raw, but isn’t necessary everyday afterwards. It’s helpful to learn to know what is good for oneself and what might be good. If someone is never confronted to raw liver, raw eggs, raw fish, for exemple, he or she may never know that it can be tasty raw. Moreover, we all have been more or less intoxicated by processed, cooked food, dairy, grain and we are therefore all more or less sick. Some specific foodstuff, different in each case, may be particularly helpful to overcome a disease or long lasting disorder. Primitive humans and wild animals in perfect health can certainly live with a restricted range of main food, per example fish and coconuts. But the case is quite different for us since we have to reconstruct what has been constructed with bad materials, I mean cooked stuff.     

as for Diogene, the healing potential for this diet is not in question - by me anyway, but only the idea that the ultimate 'decision' of what to eat is based on 'instincts' and not within the range of ideas and desires and is less artificial or better than being guided by 'nutrition' or volume or theory any other mental process.

The problem with nutritional theories is that our science is unable to apprehend the whole picture. It’s ways too complicated,  there are billions of different substances and interactions. Moreover we are all different, different genetics, different history, different illnesses, different deficiencies. We don’t understand life, how can we understand nutrition, figure out what is healthy or unhealthy? Animals and paleo-humans haven’t checked the weight nor the volume of their food intake. They have never eaten according to an ideology or theory. 

Even raw vegans can maintain low levels of weight or recover from fasts on purely fruits and vegetables. to me, eating 2 months of meat seems to defy this concept altogether, unless he was deciding from all the natural meals still on a day to day basis which surely would be alot of thrown away food, and likely plucking the idea from somewhere that he might be in need of the meat and meat alone.

As I understood, he was instinctively attracted by meat, and meat alone. If you know that meat has been tasty meals after meal, you do not have to buy anything else than meat for the next days! You can just smell the other foodstuffs at the market or in the nature and check whether their smells attracts you or not.

Ok, I hope my answers were not too much out of the window… I see that Alphagruis has just posted and I’ll respond to him now.

[GCB]

I am in complete agreement with Alphagruis on the preponderance of training and culture in several fields, particularly in visceral attraction for sauerkraut and fresh butter... As for knowing what kind of motivations pushes the apes to consume medicinal plants, it would be essential to ask them to know the truth.

I observed several times that animals can find medicinal plants without any training: for example cats separated very early without having had time to make the least ramble in the nearby fields in company of their mother, can recognize the specific grass (catnip) and consume it in case they have intestinal problems. It’s the same for other animals.

In addition, I noticed that humans are language gifted, which provides the advantage they can be asked the reasons of their behaviors. They systematically describe modifications of olfactive attractions exerted by the medicinal plants according to their health condition. It stands true for example for cassia fistula, which takes a bitter, nauseating smell in case of diarrhea tendency and change to Belgian chocolate in the event of constipation.

This leads me to think that animals, whose sense of smell is by far more efficient than that of the remains of apes we are, can recognize among the natural pharmacopeias the specific plants useful for them, and that the first detections made on the ground are then memorized and transmitted by imitation, i.e. they enter the “culture” of the group. This point of view is compatible with the opinion of the researchers as it appears from both of these sentences: "strongly suggests a common criteria of medicinal plant selection" and "suggest the existence of an underlying mechanism for the recognition and use of plants and soils with common medicinal or functional properties".

The innate and acquired cannot be dissociated, hence this apparent oscillation from one to the other in explanations of behaviors. It seems to me equally stupid to put everything on the account of the acquired as to put the whole lot on the account of the innate. Personally, I never thought nor said (contrary to what Alphagruis insinuates) that the existence of innate alliesthesic mechanisms excludes in any way the utility of training. Quite on the contrary, a training is imperatively necessary so that conditionings against nature remaining from the culinary context get erased and leave the field free to the innate reflexes. It’s this rehabilitation of the instinct that constitutes the main part of the instinctive nutrition practice such as I defined it.

For the question expressed here by Alphagruis: “Why would it be necessary to transmit that by culture between the animals if each animal can find these plants all alone with its supposedly alimentary "instinct" or else?” the answer is simple: it is advantageous from the evolution viewpoint that the instinctive mechanisms (in particular alliesthesic mechanisms) are integrated in a transmissible group’s behavior by imitation. It shortcuts the necessity to wait for the animal in need of a particular plant to passes by chance in the vicinity to be able to profit from it: the “culture” of the group is given the job to put him in situation. He can then consume it insofar as his olfactory and gustatory mechanisms indicate the plant usefulness to him. The SWD fed zoologists who observed the phenomenon certainly found a bitter taste to the sheets the chimps chewed, but the latter, practitioners of instinctive nutrition since early childhood, would obviously have found a very different flavor to it.

Yet, what is advised by the “instincto” model? To place at disposal, on the basis of our knowledge of the human food range (thus of the culture), all that is prone to be consumed, so that the instinct (thus nature) can decide under the best possible conditions which are the most suitable stuff to ingest at the moment. It has never been question of letting the sense of smell lead the consumers towards an useful food located miles away, but rather of benefiting from the little smell ability we still have left to recognize the most appropriate food in a given choice. Could Alphagruis have understood my position, this time?

gcb

[Paleo Donk]

Yet, what is advised by the “instincto” model? To place at disposal, on the basis of our knowledge of the human food range (thus of the culture), all that is prone to be consumed, so that the instinct (thus nature) can decide under the best possible conditions which are the most suitable stuff to ingest at the moment. It has never been question of letting the sense of smell lead the consumers towards an useful food located miles away, but rather of benefiting from the little smell ability we still have left to recognize the most appropriate food in a given choice. Could Alphagruis have understood my position, this time?

Lovely post, but the problem I have with the above is that these "best possible conditions" are extremely poor and artificial for moderns. Necessarily instinctual eating needs to take place in the wild, or at least with food supplied like it would be in the wild and this is fairly impossible.

[KD]

When I open my fridge, my cat comes running and immediately wants to reach for the meat. He doesn’t care for vegetables nor for fruits since he’s a carnivore: his instinct tells him, I didn’t have to teach him that he is a carnivore…

I appreciate your responses but I do feel like you are stretching your ideas to cover things I'm not even disputing and not addressing at all my specific points. Especially when you speak of nutrition in ways that are clearly not geared towards someone who basically agrees the same substances in diet, and various other things about paleo man and metric scales and such which is totally obvious.

I understand that people do not need basic components of nutrition on a day to day or even month to year basis, and that people have been known to live off fruit or even specific types of fruits for long periods or as you mention societies or animals who have pretty limited diets. This does not change my opinion that these people do not make their individual food choices on instinct and smell and believe that simple changes in circumstances and improper activity, as well the pollution and internal toxins are definitive factors. Frr most they are just going on availability which with in a balanced circumstance as I mentioned, seems to work out at least for survival.

as for Mr. Cat its obvious that a pure carnivore is not a very sound example to promote this concept of deciding between a spectrum of omni-market food nor is a domesticated animal that is 100% dependent on you which is in turn largely dependent on artificial sources, choices, and quantities. Cats are also notorious snobby in their choices. Periodlic starving might prove interesting Re: whether it will eat vegetables, cat food, or a squid or other animals it might not prefer in your fridge. You seemed to miss the crucial point of moving the wild animal into a different spectrum of choice and quantity w/o effort or strain and with the confidence that the future food would come as easily. I don't see how you can deny this doesn't impact how one consumes food and what types and quantities especially once we desire less activity and are content with builds that would not survive in nature - in the long haul anyway. The whole "we do the best we can" idea or that all are toxic, while reasonable, do not address that a wild animal (or presumably human) no matter how pure and for the ease of comparison - omnivorous, would not behave the same. And therefore it is not 100% about purity or disease impairing our natural notions of what makes us well. Please consider a Wild Boar in your kitchen.

perhaps this is better example:

if you pluck an animal or primitive into a in-closed environment that is large enough that they do not know of captivity, and you started adjusting the quantities of things or, completely eliminate the possibility of such foods and many generations had passed, they would not know that these foods provided nutrition that they might need.  Put foods with higher palatability, altered nutrient content in close proximity than those that were more difficult and it would shift further. Our world might be similarly changed. If not, its totally plausible that crabs and lobsters and other deep seafood might taste the best and might be suited to a different animal. Juicy Mango might be meant to appeal to megafauna that can swallow big seeds, it might appeal to our senses purely for entrapment by megafauna.

You seem to think I'm saying these things have no benefit, I just don't agree that they are determined by instinct no mater how healthy one becomes. In the simple component of mono eating, perhaps since most animals in nature eat this way, that is of our design, but thoughts or research and not desires or smells might drive us to adding fat to our lean meat. Perhaps even primitives that were instructed to be fed better ratios of fat or or given it in times of scarcity or had more variety (or less variety and added artificial quantity of individual foods that are the most optimal, like game) could have lived longer. Although this not worth getting into here. The point is ones satisfaction and sense, no matter how in-tuned, might not be the optimal situation for what is needed for either healing OR maintenance, even though it might for some be more than adequate.

[Iguana]

I've told you before and this is my last attempt and hope you'll grasp it. This excess of mangoes is temporary in nature and contrary to instincto dogma there is no need for a so-called "instinct" that actually keeps its intake to meet the strict needs during this period. The paleo humans or animals gorged on such fruit and ate much more than they needed as modern humans tend to do but our ancestors did it only temporarily. Most of the year there are no mangoes at all and over a one year period they do not overeat fruit and sugar and everything is OK.

Thanks for your ceaseless attempts to teach me that, but I’m so dumb that I still cannot agree. For I lived in the tropics long enough to grasp the fact that there are ripe fruits the whole year round - or almost depending on the place (a fact that you have apparently not grasped). The mango season lasts about 6 months and when it’s over there are several other kinds of fruits, many of them available the whole year. You’re right that here fruits are all seasonal ; but our instinct allows us to fill up when they are available. After a variable number of big meals of wild cherries, for example, their taste becomes so acid, even bitter, that it spontaneously stops our intake.

In constrast, if in civilized especially Burger Château de Montramé environment with mangoes or other sweet fruits available all year round,  telling poeple as instincto does,  they can eat fruit "until stop" every day all year round results usually in a  dietary disaster similar to vegans with not enough animal food and systematic overeating of sugar.

What Burger tells is quite different: he warns that our “instinctive  stop” doesn’t work well with modern, grafted and artificially selected fruits since they have been selected especially to circumvent the instinctive stop signals. So the advice is to prefer wild fruits or the least artificially selected, and in case it’s not possible, train oneself to be aware of the repletion feeling to compensate for an excessive attraction.

The fondamental "error of reasoning" of instincto or Burger is to assume that evolution has to optimize intrinsic coding of smell and taste in an animal to restrict intakes to strict needs. In fact it is quite sufficient that the whole system (animal+ environment with its constraints) be optimized by evolution to result in health and balance. This point of what's the selection entity in Darwin's natural selection view is a well known problem completely overlooked by Burger.
In other words our intrinsic attraction with respect to sweet tasting food (rare because seasonal) is actually much too strong to ensure a balanced (in terms of sugar intake) diet by itself. We have to limit fruit intake by means of conceptual intelligence. There is nothing like "instinctive" or better intrinsic regulation in this respect.

The fundamental error is in your warped way of understanding the instincto theory. Evolution has optimized our genetic code according to the environment as it was at time. Burger emphasizes that our environment has changed ever since and that a specific training is necessary because of environmental alterations.

This definitely falsifies the instincto dogma.

There’s no such thing as “instincto dogma”. The instincto theory is not a religion, quite the opposite. It’s rather your denial which appears dogmatic to me.  

Moreover, to decree that the theory is falsified because fruits are seasonal outside the tropics (of which our specie spread away only recently) and that we’ve got to limit our intake of modern fruits by our conceptual intelligence, is alike to pretend so because we use our intelligence to keep away from the cooked and processed food available at every street corner.

[Paleo Donk]

How long was mango season 300 years ago?

Also, what indigenous tribes eat as much fruit as instinctos?

[carnivore]

For I lived in the tropics long enough to grasp the fact that there are ripe fruits the whole year round - or almost depending on the place (a fact that you have apparently not grasped). The mango season lasts about 6 months and when it’s over there are several other kinds of fruits, many of them available the whole year. You’re right that here fruits are all seasonal ; but our instinct allows us to fill up when they are available. After a variable number of big meals of wild cherries, for example, their taste becomes so acid, even bitter, that it spontaneously stops our intake.

Fruits have been widely spread all over the world thanks to modern travel means. For example, banana comes from South Asia, and was not available elsewhere before the XVIth century.
In addition, thanks to selection, fruits seasons have been extended. The mango season can last a few months longer than in the wild (3 months in Polynesia and French West Indies), and even mango tree can give fruits several times (3-4 times) in the year if they are pruned to stress the tree.

So "having fruits the whole year round", even in the tropics, is a recent phenomena.

[wodgina]

I've never believed the tropical year long fruit salad idea. This world doesn't work like that...

[KD]

even if we come from complete paradise, and are the polished definition of omnivorous and therefore can thrive off any number of combinations of natural foods, and all our senses were pure and desires healthy it still makes no sense to me as a modern methodology for finding optimal nutrition within artificial circumstances. Once you take that person or animal into an unnatural setting, where the abundance has shifted in any direction, and there is very little energy, strength, or skill involved or required otherwise for daily activity, than the choices clearly change in quantity and type. Even the appearance of thriving in today's nature as a wanderer would be closer to fiction because of these distortions, and still be fairly challenging, especially to create an optimal intake.

If a Bear's natural habitat was suddenly replaced by tanks of fish and tanks of honey, there would be no way its eating pattern would be the same, no internal toxins required. Dwelling on impurities as reasons for making poor decisions does not fly in terms of the factors of desire and our brain. Simple animal brains know to eat what it can when it can, thus any distortion of this is in fact an artificial signal to the brain which says we can eat for our pleasure, and not have to worry about having prowess to secure other types of nutrition.

Even in paradise an animal or person is just eating what is available, choosing within a range dictated  by an internal instinct perhaps, but not deciding that one thing is better than another thing - within that range - based on smell or taste.  It just happens that although the ratios change, in total they seem to get correct nutrition, but it might not even be the best and they still might overeat unecessary foods or under-eat things that aren't available. I can see just the idea of such to decide what types or foods are good to eat (only if in this case if one was truly healthy like an animal which seems impossible), but no way on a moment to moment basis comparing meats and fruits and vegetables. No untainted omnivorous animal will do this is a controlled setting, nor would they refuse cooked foods from street corners or picnic baskets. Its exactly intelligence and experience which is required to distinguish healthy things from things that seem appealing and the MOST optimal and necessary from the acceptable. animals DO die from eating poisonous things.

[TylerDurden]

The problem with claims that plants couldn't be eaten year-round in the tropics is that they are based on an entirely false assumption. For example, in more ancient times, plant-life and animal-life were far more abundant than nowadays. So, the vast forests of ages ago would have provided plenty of raw fruits, albeit a much wider variety thereof with shorter seasonal availability. Plus, there are other plant-foods than just fruit, such as raw veg or  roots/tubers, nuts etc.

[Iguana]

Yeah, Iguana alias "Burger told me"
you lived in the tropics during paleo times and know everything about year round availability of fruits or other foods there.  There were of course no seasons there and highly sweet modern fruit breeds as mangoes were on plenty of trees everywhere, the whole year round, as in wild modern rain forests or savannahs.

I didn’t mean that I lived in the tropics during paleo times, right ? I said :

(…) there are ripe fruits the whole year round - or almost depending on the place

Mind you, I used the present tense ! I’m fully aware that modern fruits were not common place in the Paleolithic era and that there are few fruits in most primary forests, especially in forests lacking apes or hominids to spread the seeds.

Once more, as Burger himself, just a lot of wishful thinking , completely unsupported or utterly false statements at odds with what we are really told by good science or even worse definitely unfalsifiable statements.
You know, those of the kind Pauli termed as "Not Even Wrong".

Please note that your statement

The paleo humans or animals gorged on such fruit and ate much more than they needed

is equally unfalsifiable.

And just one final word: don't be so angry, keep cool, maybe other more naive people are going to believe you and the already huge number of instinctos worldwide will even further increase in future   

What makes me angry is the lost of a former very good friend like you because he compromises himself in insulting people, be they others or myself. By the way, I don’t care at all about the number of “instinctos” worldwide. I’m not a shareholder of “Instincto Inc”. Burger may be wrong, you may be wrong, I may be wrong: what’s the matter? Anyway, we are all more or less wrong and it doesn’t prevent me to sleep.

[Iguana]

IThe problem with claims that plants couldn't be eaten year-round in the tropics is that they are based on an entirely false assumption. For example, in more ancient times, plant-life and animal-life were far more abundant than nowadays. So, the vast forests of ages ago would have provided plenty of raw fruits, albeit a much wider variety thereof with shorter seasonal availability. Plus, there are other plant-foods than just fruit, such as raw veg or  roots/tubers, nuts etc.

Exactly, Tyler.

[alphagruis]

The problem with claims that plants couldn't be eaten year-round in the tropics is that they are based on an entirely false assumption. For example, in more ancient times, plant-life and animal-life were far more abundant than nowadays. So, the vast forests of ages ago would have provided plenty of raw fruits, albeit a much wider variety thereof with shorter seasonal availability. Plus, there are other plant-foods than just fruit, such as raw veg or  roots/tubers, nuts etc.

Tyler maybe you did'nt notice but we were talking about sweet fruits, not at all about other plant parts

In contrast to sweet fruits, there is precisely absolutely no risk of overeating raw leafy parts or tubers because of their high plant defense chemicals content. No instincto or human ever seriously overate such parts of plants and my thesis is precisely that in this case our natural intrinsic or so-called "instinctive" attraction toward these plant parts is (and can be) too weak, quite the opposite as compared to sweet fruits where it is (and can be) too strong. Too strong or too weak as compared to what Burger or instincto dogma claims them to be. In this case of leafy plant parts environmental constraints forced our ancestors to eat them in larger quantities than intrinsic attraction or instinct would urge them to do since it was now really often the only food available all year round .

In other words that's precisely another confirmation of my point that falsifies instincto. The quantities of food eaten by our ancestors and relevant dietary balance was not just a matter of intrinsic attraction or repulsion or "instincts" but actually basically a matter of environmental constraints.  

  

[GCB]

Lovely post, but the problem I have with the above is that these "best possible conditions" are extremely poor and artificial for moderns. Necessarily instinctual eating needs to take place in the wild, or at least with food supplied like it would be in the wild and this is fairly impossible.

All right: it’s impossible to find back a primitive environment. But any serious physicist will tell you that an experiment is always an approximation of the initial assumptions. By excluding cooking, mixtures, seasonings, animal milk, modified cereals and other plants, the conditions of primitive nutrition are approached very closely already. In any case, close enough for the alliesthesic mechanisms to function with a precision sufficient to control nutritional balance in the long run, BMI, inflammatory tendency and several other criteria of good health. That of course under the condition we use the sensory perception nature provided us to choose and control our food intakes (verified  by the fact that the same criteria of equilibrium get lost when instinctive stops are voluntarily trangressed).
gcb