Too Many Pronouncements, Too Little Thought and Effort

[TylerDurden]

 Yet more b*llsh*t from you, and, for god's sake, can't you say what you mean in a third of the text you usually use!?

First of all, there is an overwhelming urge to transition to cooked foods, regardless of ill-health caused thereby, simply because there is a huge social pressure to conform and go back to eating cooked foods, "like everybody else does". I know of a lot of people who had a spouse etc. who forced them to switch from their raw diet so that they "could be normal", "like everybody else", and similiar b*llsh*t. So, the fact that a few leave raw diets has usually nothing to do with health or lack thereof, but social manipulation, nothing more.

The claim that all we talk about is "theory" is of course pure horsesh*t, since we not only have plentiful anecdotal evidence to support our views but also plentiful scientific data as well.

Then there is the spectacularly stupid remark you made, that eating raw diets causes far more problems than on cooked diets. This is so obviously a lie, it's pathetic. I mean, there are a myriad ways to process/cook one's food that are completely absent in raw diets. Indeed, the whole point of raw diets is to greatly REDUCE the various ways a food is changed, so as to ensure the food remains of high-quality.

Simply put, we rawpalaeos have MORE "pieces of the puzzle", since modern science has shown, increasingly, major benefits for intake of bacteria and parasites(the hygiene hypothesis theory) as well as demonstrating the health-benefits of reducing the toxins from cooked foods etc.

[KD]

Yet more b*llsh*t from you, and, for god's sake, can't you say what you mean in a third of the text you usually use!?

ah, I though I was improving with those last ones..my apologies

You and others are in outright denial that 'eating raw' can't create problems for people that if they ate more intentional raw food OR seemingly less optimal cooked food apprached they could AVOID. This is based on a variety of super complicated internal things no one understands completely but should be discussed more often. Having to do without how this total shift-over in types of foods affects basic functioning and internal problems they interact with in non-paleo modern peoples. This is either excess of any number of things one needs to do to get enough food OR not enough of various things to account for the healing required when on raw diets...that doesn't seem to surface on cooked-stasis diets. This idea that the majority have left even this site never-mind the raw movement as a whole due to social pressures is so blatantly false that its shocking to hear from even you. Many people have a healing crisis and don't know how to get out of it or are just doing something wrong that ironically CAN be corrected with other systems that seem worse in terms of 'purity'. This represents most or the entirely of all diet change raw or otherwise (but mostly raw). Without any kind of crisis and experienceing total blissful health above what anyone else experiences, there is rarely social pressure that matters.

Ultimately many of these people that stress  your type of bullshit as opposed to mine have to cling to their bullshit as an abstract beacon to focus on because they are far less healthy than some that bring zero consciousness to their health, nevermind people that know what the right things are to focus on. Unfortunately when people arn't modeling (and being self-critical to) their own experience and contrasting it to others, they are inevitably talking about theory.  Even buttressed by 'science', personally saying this or that causes or removes symptoms or worked for people in the past does not contain all the solutions for creating true health.

[Dorothy]

Tyler - when I read KD's statement about how raw diets could cause health problems I immediately thought about Cherimoya and about Lex and what they went through on their raw diets before learning about RAFs.

I guess if someone does not have all the information or access to the possible foods or is following some prescribed raw diet that isn't right for them - that eating a wider, healthier omnivorous cooked diet might very well be better.

But we know better than that here right? 

KD ... you have to admit that people leave raw diets (or even lots of things that are really good for them) for lots of reasons - often social and practical and addictive. People are pretty complex in that way.

[TylerDurden]

I am somewhat shocked at the mindnumbing stupidity displayed by KD in his above post.
Obvious points to debunk:-

The first claim is that a multitude of problems occur on raw diets that just don't  ever occur on cooked diets. That is obviously false, as there are FAR more problems that can occur on cooked diets as there are a multitude of different kinds of ways to process/cook a food which cause great harm, ranging from boiling to frying to baking, to adding trans-fats etc. etc. By contrast, raw foods have far less variation, with no processing/cooking being involved, and only quality being an aspect(re grassfed/wild or grainfed).

It is also SHOCKING to hear from you that you like to pretend that there are no vast social pressures from the cooked-food-eating mass population to eat cooked food diets. Such an outrageous lie, given so many rawists' experiences !

The problem you face is that all your lies are debunked by the fact that our anecdotal experiences prove the dishonesty of your claims, as does all the scientific data which shows negative health-effects from eating cooked foods.

[Dorothy]

Yeah - I think KD will think a bit about the social pressure thing and concede on that. He's a logical guy. For some people social pressure means little or nothing and for some it means everything. The mental/emotional aspects of diet are important to take into consideration. Wouldn't you agree KD after pondering the emotional and social aspects of food that there are reasons to give up on diets that do work? 

And wouldn't you agree Tyler that the harm done by eating nothing but raw fruit might be worse than any cooked diet that includes animal foods to provide fat, b12 etc.? I think that KD is thinking a lot about his times of emaciation and real sickness on an insufficient raw diet. At least - that was my impression when I read what he wrote. When I read what KD writes I'm often reminded of the pictures he posted and what a massive affect that must make on his viewpoints.

KD - would you say that for a healthy person with a variety of food choices and availability that raw would be better than cooked? ... or are you saying something different? I'm a little bit confused on this myself from what you wrote.

[TylerDurden]

The whole point is that a 100 percent raw plant foods diet gives certain disadvantages while giving other advantages re "incomplete foods". Only, a raw, palaeolithic diet can provide multiple health-advantages on both sides of the spectrum, without negative problems, in the long-term.

[Dorothy]

Only, a raw, palaeolithic diet can provide multiple health-advantages on both sides of the spectrum, without negative problems, in the long-term.

That's a really big self-assured statement Tyler. Considering that there are so few people eating raw paleo today and no studies - even though I think that you might be right and raw foods are the best for me and with RAFs including I think it is and will be better - I personally would never be so bold to make such a broad certain statement like that. 

I can appreciate KD's reluctance to accept such statements without question because such statements are indeed made by other dietary regimes that people also think provide multiple health advantages without negative problems in the long term.

There aren't enough people today that have eaten a raw paleo diet long term to make such a definite assertion. There are people that have eaten raw vegan and vegetarian that also make that assertion. I'm one of them. I have gotten only health advantages with no negative problems from my previous diets. Does that mean that I can say that everyone would get the same results? I was honestly shocked when I found out that other people did not.

It will take many people lots of years reporting their benefits as well as their failures on the raw paleo diet before we can even start to state such things with assurance. I might believe that it will be the case that over a long period of time and with studies that our raw diet will prove to be what you say it is, but to make such assertions at this point could open us up to the same kind of criticisms that are made here about other diets and their claims.

[PaleoPhil]

Lowenherz, it seems like you read way more into what I wrote than I intended. The assumptions in your last post were way off and since you want me to be brief, I won't respond individually to each of them. Instead I hope the following gives the gist of where I'm coming from. First, one thing that would help shorten my posts is if you don't include so many claims about me and assumptions about what you think I mean that go well beyond what I wrote (though posing them in questions or a "sounds-like-your-saying ..." format is fine if you're truly curious). I'll also try your trick of splitting posts up.

This is a raw PALEO forum, so Paleo discussions are on topic here in the appropriate threads. It's not a generic raw food forum, or a raw LC forum, etc. There is very little info in this world that is both raw AND Paleo, so it would decimate this forum if we could only talk about things that are 100% both, and that's not required by the forum guidelines. That doesn't mean you can't limit yourself in that way if you wish.

I've participated at cooked Paleo forums and blogs too, but there my approach is considered too extremely raw and gross and too focused on the pre-cooking era of human/hominin history and the interest in RAF at other decent-sized forums is extremely limited. Since this forum allows discussion of both raw and Paleo matters, and even some that are technically neither, it's the best fit for me.

I have written a lot of posts about my own experiences with cooked food, dairy, grains, starches and high fruit consumption. My 100% raw diet is simple: I eat the best animal foods I can get plus small amounts of raw plant food.

Now that's the sort of constructive discussion I like. Thanks for that, and yes, I know you have written some stuff like that in the past, I never claimed that anyone NEVER writes like that. And if you don't want to do anything I suggested, that's your choice, it was just a request.

[PaleoPhil]

That's a really big self-assured statement Tyler. ....

Amen Dorothy, you hit some nails on the head with your post, and I think that is part of the message that KD and I have been trying to convey. I wasn't trying to undercut the benefits that people have experienced from rawness, just appeal for a tad more reasonableness, explanation and evidence (and yes, I know I'm not perfect in this regard either).

[KD]

Wouldn't you agree KD after pondering the emotional and social aspects of food that there are reasons to give up on diets that do work? 

There are social reasons to give up on diets that are working but not diets that have this proposed grandiose superiority to any alternative. If the margin is fairly small between working and semi-working obviously people will fudge more than between amazing and awful accelerated death as its painted here.

I really don't think sane people have in their mind that they eat food that is 100% bad for them on a daily basis to fit into society and that if they just ate raw that they would effortlessly return to being far healthier than anyone they know. No. I genuinely think there is a least an ambivalence or questioning at that point to what the real solution is. If there are people actually out there feeling in such a way that would be one more reason not to spread such ridiculous false discrepancies between raw and cooked dieters. I would like someone to give me the name and pictures of a single person who gave up a supreme sense of health, supremely healthy physique, and zen like disposition to be an all around unhealthy miserable slob for their loved ones.

Obviously what I'm trying to say is this hyperbole of ideal vs not ideal is the problem, not that people don't slide on their diet socially. Of course people go off raw and regret it or miss how they 'felt' . Some might leave a diet not in some kind of crisis either but odds are what they compromised with is not drastically differnt to what they were experincing on a raw diet OR what I was suggesting that often the previous result was fairly mediocre or poor. That said I always felt fantasitc up to the end on raw approaches that clearly were observed by others to not be working and yet things that were less optimal seemed to work on fixing things but not necessarly 'feeling' better and thus romanticizing those things.

[KD]

[but to make such assertions at this point could open us up to the same kind of criticisms that are made here about other diets and their claims.

Some claims appear to work by default as not doing bad things does seem make up the bulk of all health stuff, but these things are not known 100% by humans. It also doesn't account for all the other things one might NEED to do other than just avoid bad shit or issues of having too much of something that is supposedly 'non toxic' because it is raw and found on planet Earth. We can lump cooking in as bad If we wish however people can and do run into problems in raw eating and not only by approaching extremes of lacking this or that by even more strict ideologies. People following the most stringency to these claimed superior ideas have run into problems. I don't know how else to phrase that. My best guess is either because one inevitably has to eat a higher amount of this or that which are associated with problems OR they leave stuff out that are important to health but don't fall into the -ok- category OR that there are indeed various things that surface from eating raw itself that don't have such 'logical' solutions found in nature and don't have strait-forward directions on how to troubleshoot them. Other diets likely have their own even extreme problems but avoid some of these issues people seem to run into.

While we can cite anectodal experiece that raw can be useful for healing when other approaches did not for us personally, basically to keep integrity as a health approach among many (which should be the first concession) it is simply not fair to say HGs or Sisson's, Harris', Vitalis' etc... program "IS WORSE" their health "IS WORSE" because they cook x ammount of their diet. This is particulary true if their diet actually can or did get better results than MANY (not saying all or just one or two extremes) raw approaches that are inevitably validated by such simple raw=better logic. Who cares if the rests of the world makes mistakes if someone can't get their diet to reach the expectations one has with raw and CAN reach them doing something else. People simply can go on other things and have better results. Shouldn't be much of a hissy fit over that. Maybe quite a few have worse results and that needs to be pointed out too, but only when its accurate. If people still want to argue that their raw diet is 100% the answer for everyone in the face of any outliers to their ideas then they are going to have to really deliver massive personal triumphs of health to be taken seriously. Not just "I am alive and suspect to live slightly longer". IMO... (I guess??)

The objectionable part is indeed the assumptions. First the assumptions about what constitutes a human diet and then that simply eating this way ensures good health - or at least automatically better than ANY other raw or cooked approach. Just a false statement and embarrassing it has to be argued against.  I assume the objetive of a forum should be to talk about which aspects of diet are most important and how to construct a suitable (all) raw diet that does not run into problems instead of (ok more long typeing). One should be able (and be required) to show how this actually manifests as better, not show the detriments of what SHOULD happen on other approaches. If there was 0 people running into problems doing what they believed to be natures diet and EVERYONE on every other approach was decaying at an exorbitant rate, this would not be the case.

Amen Dorothy, you hit some nails on the head with your post, and I think that is part of the message that KD and I have been trying to convey. I wasn't trying to undercut the benefits that people have experienced from rawness, just appeal for a tad more reasonableness, explanation and evidence (and yes, I know I'm not perfect in this regard either).

This time we are really going to change Tyler's mind and the forum for the better.

heh heh heh
ug

[Löwenherz]

Folks,

we are talking about foods here and not about nuclear explosives!

I see and feel a lot of peevishness and irritability here. In my case it is caused by eating too much red meat. Whereas fruits (in limited amounts), salads, fish, seafood, fowl and coconut fat make me very calm. I guess that many members here show similar reactions to high amounts of red meat..

Löwenherz

[Iguana]

Thanks for stating that, Löwenherz, it had to be said (even if I've never experienced the effect on my mood of too much red meat, because I don't eat too much of it!)

I concur with KD (according to the abstract of his writings kindly provided by Dorothy) that a raw diet of Atropa belladonna, Cerbera odollam and other plants listed here is worse than a standard cooked diet - at least if you want to live.

[HIT_it_RAW]

Folks,

we are talking about foods here and not about nuclear explosives!

I see and feel a lot of peevishness and irritability here. In my case it is caused by eating too much red meat. Whereas fruits (in limited amounts), salads, fish, seafood, fowl and coconut fat make me very calm. I guess that many members here show similar reactions to high amounts of red meat..

Löwenherz

Interesting I eat quite a lot of red meat and I feel that the more meat I eat(in general) the calmer I am. I have a hard time sourcing good quality white meat so I never tried not eating red meat in any given week. Might try that see how it effect my moods. Too much high glycemic foods make me hyperirritable and(in case of grains) rather aggressive.

[Dorothy]

KD - I hope you understand that I am in complete agreement with you on hyperbole and assumptions. Outliers and others eating different diets with just as good results or better can't be ignored if we are going to be reasonable.

When it comes to not doing things that are good for us I think it makes sense to take into consideration psychology. I am one of those people that has a really tough time getting myself to do things that I know for a fact are good for me because of patterns from my childhood. An example is that I came up with a form of yoga decades ago that makes me feel truly amazing and there is no doubt in my mind (or my body) that it is good for me. But, often in my life as I started to feel the very best I have self-sabotaged so have had trouble doing my yoga consistently and would give it up just when it was having the best results. This had nothing to do with whether or not doing that yoga (or my other list of things that are obviously very good for me) was/is beneficial. I am pretty sure that my psychological issues in this regard have little to do with my diet. I have overcome that tendency many times with different activities and that success was not related to food. I could go into more detail about that but I don't think that really necessary and it is kinda private.

Please don't fall into a trap KD which might reduce your other on-target remarks by making the assumption that just because something is the healthiest thing in general to do that people won't turn from it. Maybe it is because I am insane - but then - from what I noticed - a great many people are. I will concede that there is a chance that maybe we who have trouble doing what is good for us might be damaged already from previous diets and that might be an influence, but it has to be taken into consideration doesn't it? People will turn from things that are good for them because of external and internal pressures. The variety of those pressures in our present modern society can be intense for some people. Some people will give up things that are the best for them because of a deep love, a desire for connection and community or even psychic attunement with others or because they got messed up somewhere along the line. We are highly social and psychologically complex animals. Our unconscious and subconscious minds can powerfully influence our wills - and not always in logical or beneficial ways. I personally think that it takes a sane society and family structure along with a sane diet to create sane people and in my opinion, our society is pretty insane.

[RawZi]

I see and feel a lot of peevishness and irritability here. In my case it is caused by eating too much red meat. Whereas fruits (in limited amounts), salads, fish, seafood, fowl and coconut fat make me very calm. I guess that many members here show similar reactions to high amounts of red meat..

    I don't think so, but raw white meat stablizes my mood when need be, not to mention fats lol again and not oils.  They burn me up.

[RawZi]

I eat quite a lot of red meat and I feel that the more meat I eat(in general) the calmer I am. I have a hard time sourcing good quality white meat so I never tried not eating red meat in any given week. Might try that see how it effect my moods. Too much high glycemic foods make me hyperirritable and(in case of grains) rather aggressive.

    Raw red meat allows a perfectly very deep healing sleep for me.  Grains got me irritable.

[RawZi]

...I am one of those people that has a really tough time getting myself to do things that I know for a fact are good for me because of patterns from my childhood. .. I could go into more detail about that but I don't think that really necessary and it is kinda private. 

    Fascinating.  Diet can help some things that would never think it would though.

[TylerDurden]

That's a really big self-assured statement Tyler. Considering that there are so few people eating raw paleo today and no studies - even though I think that you might be right and raw foods are the best for me and with RAFs including I think it is and will be better - I personally would never be so bold to make such a broad certain statement like that. 

I can appreciate KD's reluctance to accept such statements without question because such statements are indeed made by other dietary regimes that people also think provide multiple health advantages without negative problems in the long term.

There aren't enough people today that have eaten a raw paleo diet long term to make such a definite assertion. There are people that have eaten raw vegan and vegetarian that also make that assertion. I'm one of them. I have gotten only health advantages with no negative problems from my previous diets. Does that mean that I can say that everyone would get the same results? I was honestly shocked when I found out that other people did not.

  Incorrect. Like I said before, we now have 1,000s of studies confirming the harm caused by heat-created toxins from cooked foods. We also have scientific data on the benefits of bacteria etc. Granted, there are next to no studies done on raw animal foods, solely due to prejudice, but one doesn't need that when extensive data on the harm done by cooking and non-palaeo foods is easily available. Plus we have evidence from the animal kingdom of the benefits of raw, natural foods.

[Dorothy]

  Incorrect. Like I said before, we now have 1,000s of studies confirming the harm caused by heat-created toxins from cooked foods. We also have scientific data on the benefits of bacteria etc. Granted, there are next to no studies done on raw animal foods, solely due to prejudice, but one doesn't need that when extensive data on the harm done by cooking and non-palaeo foods is easily available.

Making a leap that because there were studies done on the harm of one thing means that the opposite is beneficial without direct studies is misguided.

For instance, if exposure to the sun can create ill-effects, it does NOT stand to reason that keeping oneself in the dark is healthful.

Double-blind studies of cooked foods vs raw foods is necessary - and you are right - that we will likely not have that happen due to prejudice and lack of financial gain. So the prudent thing to do in such a situation imho is to be a bit cautious about the exuberance of our claims. 

[Löwenherz]

Interesting I eat quite a lot of red meat and I feel that the more meat I eat(in general) the calmer I am. I have a hard time sourcing good quality white meat so I never tried not eating red meat in any given week.

That can be very different from person to person. Aajonus described this phenomenon in his two books.

Sourcing high quality white meat becomes indeed more and more difficult. Domesticated grain-fed fowl is no option for me and my hunting friends get fewer and fewer wild fowl every year. If I think of all these rivers and lakes in Europe, wild fowl must have been very abundant..

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

Making a leap that because there were studies done on the harm of one thing means that the opposite is beneficial without direct studies is misguided.

For instance, if exposure to the sun can create ill-effects, it does NOT stand to reason that keeping oneself in the dark is healthful.

Double-blind studies of cooked foods vs raw foods is necessary - and you are right - that we will likely not have that happen due to prejudice and lack of financial gain. So the prudent thing to do in such a situation imho is to be a bit cautious about the exuberance of our claims. 

  False analogy, I'm afraid, light/dark can't realistically be compared to raw/cooked. Plus, there is ample evidence from wild animals that raw foods are healthy(same as regards pets, if you've read about the pet-food-poisoning scandal in 2007 which diverted many owners to provide raw foods for their dogs instead).

Besides, most of our claims are not over the top. We don't generally make claims that genetic diseases are always fully cured by raw diets, and  I have even pointed out that cancer exists in wildlife populations living off raw, natural foods.

The simple fact is that cooking cannot provide all the benefits that raw foods can. Naturally, some forms of cooked diets are "less worse" than others, and can even provide some health benefits, in some cases, but that's all.

[ys]

i also would like to mention there are too many long essays.  i personally don't read them.

[RawZi]

  False analogy, I'm afraid, light/dark can't realistically be compared to raw/cooked.

    Perhaps in my case, a little properly made bone broth from red meat animal as opposed to a cooked white meat meal, well, ok, cooked is always worse than (wonderful) raw, but cooked white is many times worse for me than raw white, while cooked red bone broth is only a couple times worse for me than raw red.  Raw red is good for me, but I have a temper.

[Dorothy]

  False analogy, I'm afraid, light/dark can't realistically be compared to raw/cooked. Plus, there is ample evidence from wild animals that raw foods are healthy(same as regards pets, if you've read about the pet-food-poisoning scandal in 2007 which diverted many owners to provide raw foods for their dogs instead).

Besides, most of our claims are not over the top. We don't generally make claims that genetic diseases are always fully cured by raw diets, and  I have even pointed out that cancer exists in wildlife populations living off raw, natural foods.

The simple fact is that cooking cannot provide all the benefits that raw foods can. Naturally, some forms of cooked diets are "less worse" than others, and can even provide some health benefits, in some cases, but that's all.

If I make an analogy you take it so literally. You are not talking good science Tyler and I'm afraid that it might come back to bite raw paleo in the behind.

I also think raw is best and feed my dogs raw and have for a long time because it makes sense to me but when I got to the raw vegan forums after decades of doing it alone and heard people continually saying that it was the best and only way with not enough to back those statements up and then heard others not doing well on the diet it made me question. If people are going to go about stating that raw paleo - in all it's forms including zero carb as well as a lot of fruit and all other derivatives is the one and only way to be healthy for everyone and at the same time read how some people have gotten sick on that same board - I'm going to be very disappointed and start questioning whether people are thinking straight here either.

It's not that I don't agree with you about raw paleo in my own opinion - but it is just that - an opinion. If we close our eyes and ears to everyone else who gets different results or has a different opinion we will rightfully be accused of hubris and seeing things only through our own individual filters. I really would hate to see that happen to a diet that has such real promise. I would like scientists to take us seriously as well.