Can we do without vegetables/greens?

[eveheart]

While USA's Eveheart's example shows her instincts leaned towards markedly less fruit and more carnivorous.

My natural taste and appetite, untainted by the seductive tastes and smells of seasoned/cooked food, steers me towards the foods that heal and balance me. It has nothing to do with my country of residence.

[littleElefant]

Löwenherz

why did you cut coconut out?
What are your fat sources now?
Do you consume any plant food at all at the moment?

[Iguana]

How did GCB anyway, get his ideas originally? I mean there is a certain common-sense involved, obviously, but, maybe, he knew someone before him who had similiar ideas?

Of course, he knew about the raw foodists, but at the time everyone thought that modern humans had lost their alimentary instinct. The experiments of Clara Davis were little known in continental Europe and I don’t know if he had heard about it, but I think it’s unlikely. 

Clara M. Davis and the wisdom of letting children choose their own diets http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/

Accordingly, Davis devised the experiment to let children do for themselves because she suspected that children's bodies instinctively “knew best” what the individual child should eat. Her intellectual model, a view that would later be called “the wisdom of the body,” likened a child's instinctive appetite to the way various autonomic body systems effortlessly adjust themselves to compensate for external challenges — think of sweating on a hot day, and breathing faster when you start to run.

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/instinctoanopsology/tl-%27peter%27-cleave%27s-1956-instincto-like-%27natural-law%27/msg83768/#msg83768  Cleave’s work pointed out by PaleoPhil was also largely unnoticed.

GCB tells in his book http://www.reocities.com/HotSprings/7627/ggraw_eat1.html that during a trip in US, he decided to eat raw for the duration of his short stay (beginning of part 1):

Perhaps you could begin by telling me how you started out on instinctotherapy?

o With a cabbage. A red cabbage, as it happened.

_Are you serious?

o Perfectly. I’m always serious.
It all started when I was on my last concert tour in the United States, in 1964. It was a two-month trip, with some 40-odd concerts in all the big towns on the East Coast. At the time, I still thought I was cut out to be a concert musician. You may know that Americans are bound by law to detail all the additives that go into their food.
Just imagine how hungry you might feel, knowing that you were purchasing daily a whole string of preservatives, flavor enhancers, coloring, emulsifiers, and fillers_all of which are well-known for their carcinogenic properties.

_Had you been ill at that point?

o I had indeed become very much alive to the problem. And so, rather than poison myself with dubious ingredients, I wisely decided to buy organically grown foods and do my own cooking in hotel rooms. I had taken along a burner to brew myself some tea, which soon proved hopeless, because the tap water was too chlorinated. At the time, it took me two to three cups of tea to be fighting fit for a concert. If I didn’t take a stimulant, I always felt stiff-jointed. At first I had imagined that I could at least cook myself some soup or some pasta, now and again, to supplement my pack-lunches. But the thing is, when I tried to plug into an American socket, I got the shock of my life from the current. I felt that to be a stroke of fate, so I decided to eat everything raw.

_Weren’t you afraid of feeling a bit weak without any hot food to sustain you? The cello is said to require a lot of stamina.

o Well, in fact, I noticed quite the reverse. Every time I had a well-cooked square meal before playing, I felt unfit, whereas when I only ate a little fruit, my playing was masterful. I usually made up for leeway on cream cakes at after-concert functions. I’d always had a sweet tooth!
I scouted out a health food store where I stocked up on quite a variety of fruit, honey in combs, avocados, a few vegetables, tomatoes, and that red cabbage of mine. I packed the whole business right next to my tailcoat, my white shirt, and my varnished shoes.

_I thought you were against mixing.

o Well, anyway, that’s how I was led to eat a 100% raw diet long enough to come to a strange conclusion: When I first tasted a leaf from my red cabbage, I found it delicious. My instant reaction was: “Those organic American red cabbages are tremendous; no need for salt, oil, and vinegar!” Only, the following day, when I tasted another leaf from the same cabbage, it had a sharp, unpleasant taste. A subsequent leaf tasted even worse. My first thought was, to account for such an abrupt change, that the poor old cabbage hadn’t put up with the trip and had gone bad on the way. Days later, I ventured a bite just to see whether it tasted any worse. And lo and behold, it tasted as good as it had on the very first day! So, I was wrong, the cabbage had obviously not rejuvenated. Clearly, the change had taken place in me and not in the cabbage.
Was my body guiding me into eating a food I needed or discarding one I didn’t; was it a kind of dietary instinct? I wrote to my wife right away, but the idea seemed far-fetched, and I forgot all about it when I returned home.

Some time later, the whole family joined by two friends (one of them I know very well) started to eat all raw. As a physicist, GCB is a very meticulous experimenter and observer (I found it out when he stayed a few months at my place). They started from scratch, questioning all the contemporary beliefs in nutrition and they set up a whole series of experiments on mice, other animals and themselves. I think one of their first findings was that our alimentary instinctive regulation works well enough with unprocessed stuff, but is severely hampered by cooked, spiced, processed and mixed stuff. 

Luckily, after a while on 100% raw food, especially GCB himself started to get strong reactions when he eats something which is not ok and this helped a lot to identify the foods which should not be eaten. They came to suspect wheat as a troublesome food, and this was well confirmed with the mice experiments. At the time, they were vegetarians, because nobody around had ever thought that we could eat raw meat. I don’t know whether they ate eggs, we should ask him.

They drank milk from an organic farmer because the idea that milk isn’t a initial food had not yet emerged from anybody’s mind. But after some time, GCB started to suspect that something was wrong with that milk since every time he drank some, he had troubles. Thus, they bought a goat to have their own controlled source of perfect milk. Still it seemed to induce troubles and they also noticed that it doesn’t trigger any neat instinctive stop. Himself drank it by periods, perhaps one or two months with milk and one or two without. Then it was clear that it was milk which triggered problems, such as infections of wounds or even without apparent reasons.

It took some serious debate and thinking to find out the reason, until GCB realized that milk consumption could only have appeared after the domestication of animals, about 8000 years ago. So, they suppressed all milk from their diet and thus became vegan or almost.

Then…

That we should eat raw animal food was discovered instinctively, for fish by the eldest son of GCB who was 4 or 5 years old at the time and for meat a bit later by GCB himself: at the market and passing by the fishmonger stall, the son told his father: “dad, I wanna eat a fish, buy me a fish!”

The whole family had been eating raw for sometimes, but it had not come to their mind that we can and must eat raw fish and raw meat. So the father was rather surprised. Anyway, he bought a fish, gave it to his son who instantly gobbled it raw in front of the flabbergasted fishmonger! Sometime latter, the father passed by a butcher stall and was bewildered to be attracted by the smell of raw meat. He then introduced it raw on the family table and everyone found it appetizing.

(They started as) raw vegetarians.  The first question was “No animal cook food, why are we cooking ?” And they started to eat all raw, instinctively, unmixed, unseasoned. They were still eating raw dairy (and perhaps raw eggs, but that I’m not sure), but for some periods GCB didn’t eat any dairy. When he started to have dairy again, he noticed that he got inflammations (for example around small wounds) and even that spontaneous infections appeared. He then thought that the milk they got from an organic farmer wasn't ok. So they bought a goat to have their own milk and to be sure of its quality. Still it caused inflammations and infections.

Then another question came: what’s wrong with the milk? It took him some time, some more experiments and some more thinking until he realized that no animal drinks the milk of another animal species and that that no animal drinks milk in adulthood. So, the next step was to suppress all dairy.

Having suppressed all or almost all sources of animal food, there’s no wonder it didn’t take long for raw fish and raw meat to become attractive!

All that was around 1964 – 1965. At the time, eating raw fish and raw meat was absolutely out of question for everyone in Switzerland. The fact that on the other side of the planet Pacific Islanders and Japaneses had always eaten raw fish without any problems was completely overlooked in Europe and W. A. Price work was almost unknown.

[TylerDurden]

Most interesting, thanks.

[Dorothy]

An idea with seaweeds.   Most, except some of the softer varieties are very difficult to digest, unless prolonged cooking is used.   To avoid cooking, and aid in the digestion,  I take Alaria, collected by Larch in Maine,  best seaweed in the US, and I take a big hand full  and freeze it, even though it's already dried.  That decreases almost all water content.  Then I blend it in my vitamix.  But first I put the blender portion and lid in the freezer, so that I cold blend it.  It almost comes out like a powder.  I eat two to three heaping teaspoons a day.  It is wonderful with a bit of shredded coconut and coconut oil.  I eat this on an empty stomach.  I tend to experience and believe that it is so alkaline that it impedes digestion of raw meat, in that it can neutralize stomach acids.  One can chew dried alaria for 'hours' in the mouth and still have a wad to chew.   I would like to stone cold grind the blended material to make a fine powder,  like the powder that sticks to the blender lid and walls.  That simply melts in your mouth.  I keep the blended powder in a small jar and in the fridge.  I make it every three days or so.    So much better tasting than Kale etc..   

Aren't Larch's seaweeds the bomb Van! I do almost what you do - except I don't freeze. I just put all their seaweeds that come in their awesome family pack into my blendtec. I make it once and it's been lasting forever.   It's not a fine powder that comes out - but just fine for my purposes. I've been putting some in water with lemon and drinking - YUM. Is there a reason why you think you have to do it every three days instead of just making a big batch all at once like I do? I also use this as a supplement for my chickens.

I wonder what freezing does to it if anything. Does anyone have any guesses if freezing would deplete or degrade anything?

[van]

Dorothy, hi,  I don't think freezing does any real harm here, since the 90% of the water has already been removed, hence there is no cell bursting when I freeze it.  This only serves to remove the rest of the water, so that it powders easier.  I make it every three days since I don't want it oxidizing (even in the fridge).   Blending or powderizing it exposes it to lots of oxygen.  Freezing the blender jar at least keeps the temp low while blending.  If I was to suggest to Larch to make this a product, which I'm considering, I would suggest that he vacuum seal or nitrogen flush small batches, and instruct buyers to store in fridge or freezer.   I really think that when it gets closer to talcum powder or baby powder in consistency, that's when It's easier to digest and doesn't just pass through you.  I too use to soak the whole seawead in water, and drink that, and then juice the seaweed remains, but always felt as though I was throwing too much away, as in pulp, even though it went to the ducks.   They get Larch's fertilizer/animal seaweed anyway.  That's when I went to powdering it and consuming the whole product.  Plus as I mentioned, I think it's amazing for the bowels, and intestinal flora.   And right now it's really my only vegetable source.   I love the idea that it's never been hyberdized, has the perfect balance of minerals,  has no antinutrients,
  and tastes great.    Have you tried it with shredded fresh coconut or coconut oil?    I still like to eat it first thing before the first of my two main meals and an hour before my second.  It curbs the appetite slightly, and satisfies, but never raises blood sugar.      Any other thoughts,, let me know.  Van

[Dorothy]

Hey Van. I'll try freezing and powdering some like you suggested. My blending creates small enough chunks so that when I put it on or in my food I don't notice it at all and in the water it mostly dissolves - but it's not a fine powder so there are leftovers. Usually I would think that when you get something down to that kind of a find powder the oxidation would be more no? My tiny hunks work nicely, mostly like finely chopped, but I'm certainly open to suggestions on how to make it better.

I'm not such a big fan of coconut oil except for on my skin. I can't imagine it being that great with the ground seaweed  I make, but I will definitely try it with the powder when I try that. I like the idea of taking it before meals as you said. You do seem to eat a lot of it. I've never had that much in a day. Might be an interesting experiment.

The family pack is so immense with such savings for buying in such bulk and according to Larch only is good for a year so I have no trouble with the waste as I find putting any leftovers of the soaked seaweed into my vegetable garden as just one more great reason to buy the stuff. It's simply wonderful for my garden - especially in the summer.

[Iguana]

They posts about fertilizing the soil have been transferred here:
How to fertilize the soil

[Dorothy]

Good choice Iguana to move that sideline discussion. Thank you.

[Löwenherz]

So, then low sugar vegetables are ok, but…  Where is the limit between low sugar and high sugar?

Carb intake on ketogenic diets lies usually between zero and 80 grams per day, dependant on the types of fats that are used. MCTs lead to higher ketone levels.

For your info, the “instincto” is not “sugar based”.

Defacto it is,
at least in all cases I have seen in Germany and France.

You must be talking about vegetarians or almost vegetarians calling themselves ”instinctos”.

No.

Still go tacking in search of your way from the greatest thing on Earth to another opposed greatest thing? Ok, please let us know your results when you’ll have some years of steady experimenting consistently on the same diet, without always changing your ideas and practice.

Take it easy, Iguana.

I'm on a raw low carb diet for many years.

What I'm doing is finetuning this diet between ZC and low carb. Ketosis brings some amazing benefits.

Obviously you are unable to discuss anything beside your inctincto religion which is based on nonsense and ignorance in many regards. For example, it's very naive to believe that our body shows reliable instinctive feedback signals when we eat artificial foods that have never been part of human nutrition, overbred fructose bombs like apples and pears for example. If you feel such "instinctive stop" at all you have already eaten way too much of this damaging substance. Fructose is addictive and it's 20-30 times more glycating than glucose. And it's a particularly bad idea to eat overbred, tropical high sugar fruits frequently during winter times in northern countries. This was common practice amongst "instinctos" and the primary cause of their health troubles, including massive mental problems, besides "instinctive" overconsumption of nuts and seeds. Complete ignorance of the science about fructose, glycation, w6 fats, our dietary past and ketogenic diets is another principal characteristic of the instincto drivel.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Löwenherz

why did you cut coconut out?
What are your fat sources now?
Do you consume any plant food at all at the moment?

Hi Elefant,

I have the feeling that animal fats are better on strict ketogenic diets. And I like it to eat 100% locally. Fats come mainly from beef and wild boar.

At the moment I eat no plant foods.. Organs are very important.

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

Personally, LWZ, I have found that the Instincto principles do actually work most of the time, PROVIDED one doesn't eat any cooked, processed foods. Consuming the latter gives unnatural cravings which can only be avoided by a seasoned person who can tell the difference between unnatural cravings and genuine desires.

[Dorothy]

Lowenherz - in an above post you said that Instinctos suffer from "massive mental problems". That's a big accusation to make - can you back that up with proof or at least some examples - anything? Who specifically are you speaking of? If instinctos have suffered massive mental problems on the diet that is indeed important to know, but if it's innuendo or just some rumor then not too cool. I would like to know more specifically what you are referring to here please.

[Löwenherz]

Iguana, you are a nice guy. I would like to emphasize that my harsh "instincto" criticism is certainly not meant personally in any way.

BUT the word "instincto" always reminds me of the most absurd (!) scenes, regarding nutrition, lifestyle and social behaviour, I have ever seen. Really. Highlights in this regard were my visits at Montramé in France many years ago.

In my view, your "instincto" diet is working for you (if it is) because you are not eating really "instinctively". How could it ever be instinctive to wait x minutes after eating food from group A before eating food from group B? As an example from your practice. I remember very well how all "instinctos" I met tried to apply an immense number of "absolutely necessary" defacto non-instinctive "instincto"-rules like food combining, eating cassia every morning to "detox", certain times for drinking, sniffing at countless foods from countless origins at fixed (!) times during the day, forced eating of animal foods if only fruit is smelling good for x days etc. They all failed.

So, I stop talking about "instincto" now.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Lowenherz - in an above post you said that Instinctos suffer from "massive mental problems". That's a big accusation to make - can you back that up with proof or at least some examples - anything?

Of course Dorothy. But the names of the people would be of no use for you. You would have to ask them personally. All of them realized after some time that they have to drastically, non-instinctively cut back the amount of fruit sugar and seeds in their diet to avoid problems, more and more the older they became.

BTW: In Germany the "instincto" - movement is long dead. And vegan raw foodism, called "Rohkost", was never confused with "instincto" here, as Tyler thought.

Löwenherz

[Dorothy]

Of course Dorothy. But the names of the people would be of no use for you. You would have to ask them personally. All of them realized after some time that they have to drastically, non-instinctively cut back the amount of fruit sugar and seeds in their diet to avoid problems, more and more the older they became.

BTW: In Germany the "instincto" - movement is long dead. And vegan raw foodism, called "Rohkost", was never confused with "instincto" here, as Tyler thought.

Löwenherz

Fair enough. Can I ask at least approximately how many people or percentage of the people doing instincto that you met had mental problems and of what kind? I take such claims and observations seriously as it was what I noticed about the low fat vegans in general that I had contact with that made me stop and think deeply on that approach - and then even to re-think veganism itself even though it did not seem to have the same negative effects on me. I like hearing of other people's general impressions and central nervous system health is the prime reason I have turned towards raw paleo.

[TylerDurden]

LWZ is talking nonsense. "Rohkost" is often routinely confused with "Instinkto", both online and offline. And I reckon more people are following Instincto than suggested. At least judging from past forums I've seen. Plus, food-combining is unnecessary. I've found I digest much easier if I stick to one type of food at a time. Same happens in Nature,  more or less. I don't see raw omnivorous animals like bears necessarily eating raw plants immediately after a kill of wild salmon etc.
*What  truly amazed me was one  recent photo Iguana showed of GCB, in which GCB noticeably looked much younger than Aajonus despite being much older than him, and having had to, unfairly,  suffer a prison-sentence a while back wherein, presumably, he was forced to eat cooked rubbish. To me, that's disgraceful. I mean being convicted is one thing, but being deprived of natural sunlight and reasonably good food is unbearable, to say the least.*

[Joy2012]

What  truly amazed me was one  recent photo Iguana showed of GCB, in which GCB noticeably looked much younger than Aajonus despite being much older than him...

Where is the photo, please? Or just a recent photo of GCB?

[TylerDurden]

Where is the photo, please? Or just a recent photo of GCB?

Can't remember which thread. PM Iguana for the photo. It showed GCB at a dinner-table, as I recall.

[Dorothy]

Iguana would you please post that picture here for all of us? Thanks.

[Iguana]

GCB at lunch time in October 2009.

[Iguana]

In my view, your "instincto" diet is working for you (if it is) because you are not eating really "instinctively". How could it ever be instinctive to wait x minutes after eating food from group A before eating food from group B? As an example from your practice. I remember very well how all "instinctos" I met tried to apply an immense number of "absolutely necessary" defacto non-instinctive "instincto"-rules like food combining, eating cassia every morning to "detox", certain times for drinking, sniffing at countless foods from countless origins at fixed (!) times during the day, forced eating of animal foods if only fruit is smelling good for x days etc. They all failed.

We’ve never pretended that in a modern life we can regulate everything instinctively! More often than not, you’ve got to go to work and thus have only a lunch time break, so you can’t eat whenever you want. In nature you can’t neither eat as soon as you wake up: you must first move around in search for food. Once you finally have found something edible or caught a prey, only then you can eat. Then if still hungry, you’ll have to find something else and it’s likely to require more time and effort.

You have to be somewhat crazy or at least passionate to deviate so much from the standard by eating everything raw. Hence, there are many “instinctos” who are totally crazy. Instinctive raw paleo nutrition doesn’t cure idiocy. A lot of people on so called “instincto” are stupid enough to take flexible advices aimed at  beginners for absolute, fixed rules. The ordinary educational system (and religion even more so) favors beliefs in what is taught instead of urging to question everything and allways ask the how and why as GCB used to insistently plead in his seminars. Leaving a comfortable, somehow religious, system of beliefs in view to reach a scientific way of thinking is too much of a hard change for most people who are neither unable to think by themselves nor systematically use the methodical doubt as we should.

All the "absolutely necessary" defacto non-instinctive "instincto"-rules you cite are, of course, nothing more than (bendable) advices for beginners embedded in our modern world and having survived on a standard cooked diet during decades. Confusing those suggestions with absolute rules is stupid. Taking them as an intrinsic part of the theory is even more stupid.

Obviously you are unable to discuss anything beside your inctincto religion which is based on nonsense and ignorance in many regards.

Yes, we are absolutely ignorant, as our pre-fire ancestors were and as animals are! It’s a great mistake to think that mankind is largely superior to all animals and that our knowledge is comprehensive enough to allow us to know what and how much to eat of each stuff — notwithstanding how to interact with nature and the universe in general. Modern humans are awfully pretentious.

Concerning my religion, I already stated that I’m the one and only John Frum (a variant of the Cargo Cult) worshiper outside the island of Tana, Vanuatu. LOL   

For example, it's very naive to believe that our body shows reliable instinctive feedback signals when we eat artificial foods that have never been part of human nutrition, overbred fructose bombs like apples and pears for example.

Ever since the beginning of the experiment, around 1965, the question has been to determine with which foodstuffs our alimentary instinct works and how well it works. Of course, it works better with wild stuffs. Nevertheless it hasn’t been found out that apples are atom bombs. 

François

[Joy2012]

Iguana, thank you for the pictures. How old was GCB in 2009? Does he have any illness?

Will you say that he eats much fruit?

GCB considers much land-animal food as not optimal, right? So does he favor more seafood than land-animal food?

[Iguana]

Iguana, thank you for the pictures. How old was GCB in 2009? Does he have any illness?

According to Wikipedia, he was born  the on Septembre 4, 1934 at Lausanne in Switzerland (also my home town), so he is 78 years old.
 
In general, he eats fruits only for lunch and an animal food first at dinner. Some years ago he experimented to eat one single stuff per meal and several meals per day, but he found out better for him to eat twice a day only. Most of us do it that way but a few have it the second way, or anything in-between.

GCB considers much land-animal food as not optimal, right? So does he favor more seafood than land-animal food?

He considers some land animals food necessary, at least sometimes, and an animal stuff about everyday, be it meat and/or organs, fish, shellfish or eggs. He thinks we may tend to eat too much mammals' meat and not enough insects — as a matter of fact we most often don't eat any at all and perhaps it could be essential to have some.

AFAIK he has no illness and he is in perfect health.

[Dorothy]

Thanks for the pictures Iguana. GCB in the pictures does put out a sense of vitality - especially for the age of 78! The interesting thing is that the lighting isn't even very good as it is lighting him from above so you can't see his eyes well. That usually makes people look worse. The picture also obviously has not been retouched with that shadow of the clothesline running through his face. Looks like an authentic amateur shot taken of him having a late morning, early afternoon meal at his leisure and like he was even a little surprised. He also doesn't "appear" to be a man with "massive mental problems" - and neither do you from your writings here at the forum Iguana. Have you known GCB long Iguana? What is your impression of his mental state?