I learned quite a lot while reading this interesting thread. Thanks Tyler and others ! The following comments come to my mind.
Plus, a lot of people do very badly on zero-carb, raw or otherwise, judging from reports of RPDers. I'm not the only one. Though, I'll grant that the overwhelming majority of people do better on raw,low-carb(<35%) than raw, high-carb(like Instincto)(80%+ raw plant-foods).
There’s no such thing as percentage of carbs – protein – animal food – plant food in instincto. Everyone is different and of course we also change with time; therefore our % intake of different foodstuff varies over time. Many people eating “instincto” consume a lot of meat, oyster, eggs, fish. Personally it’s almost everyday in quite big quantities. When we like some particular food we may eat a staggering amount of it in a single meal or during several consecutive meals – by the way just like wild animals. Since our choice of food is instinctive, it may well be 100 % RAF for a while, or on the opposite100 % plants for a few days. That’s the way to fulfill our personally specific, transient and ever-changing body needs.
As regards the cooked-food-issue, I've heard claims that detox can be stopped if one readds enough cooked-foods(c.50% of diet?) - the Aajonus interpretation of that would be that that large an amount of cooked-foods overwhelms the body thus diverting the toxins into the fat-cells instead of them being expelled.
Interesting. It's at least plausible. It might be similar to how I didn't notice that gluten was doing a number on me because I was eating it so regularly that my body was constantly overwhelmed, resulting in a very gradual increase in chronic symptoms rather than a violent detox- or allergic-type reaction. It was only when I stopped eating gluten completely for over 3 weeks that my systems calmed down enough that a gluten challenge resulted in severe symptoms.
Yes, that’s almost exactly what has been verified in instincto experiments and theorized by GC Burger – in late 60s or perhaps early 70s !
I'm saying that adaptation to a healthy (raw)food should really take only a few months(barring serious digestion-related issues like a seriously damaged liver/pancreas etc.) I can only base this on mine and others experience, of course(I took 8 months longer than most because of the raw dairy, but that was because I was hyper-allergic to it, and it took that long for me to find that out). Most, on the other hand, find it only takes weeks or a couple of months to adjust(if they go 95%+ raw; as a result, it's usually recommended to go 85%+ raw to ensure rapid adaptation to raw.
We should recognize two distinct phenomenon : genetic adaptation and habituation. There’s no delay in genetic adaptation to paleo raw food: adaptation has been thoroughly perfected during millions of years of evolution and is still there in the genes of each of us. Thus we can jump to 100 % raw paleo food straight away if we want. That’s what I did 22 years ago and never regretted.
Habituation to grain, dairy and cooked food is why most people feel OK for years with a SAD (what about Standard European Diet ?
). Grain, dairy and cooked food are kind of drugs : by eating it 3 or more times a day results in the body tolerating it and avoiding any defense reactions since it would be permanent and thus impracticable.
After a few days (normally about a week) of instinctive paleo nutrition, the body gets out of tolerance and apparently starts to eliminate the garbage previously introduced with cooked food, grain and dairy. This “detox” may be somewhat uncomfortable for a while but it’s been found out that the best way to control it is to stick to 100 % instinctive raw paleo food: any small intake of cooked food is bound to exacerbate the detox.
Cheers
Francois
