How to start

[Simone]

Hello everyone, my name is Simone, I live in Italy and I am raw vegan but mine is not an ethical choice. My food "journey" started  about two years ago and included various stages in chronological order:
1) standard vegan diet (with fake and refined foods)
2) vegan diet with whole foods in their natural state (only fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, nuts and seeds, cold pressed oil)
3) raw food vegan diet (only fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, but low fat high carb)

The reason for my dietary change is the desire to achieve the best possible health and boycott the food industry that produces cooked and handled food.
However, despite the enormous improvements that the new diet have brought I became very skinny and my physical performance are not very good. As a result of these problems led me to further research through which I discovered the anopsology. I've read the Italian translation of "Manger Vrai" by Guy Claude Burger.

But I have some problems that I hope you'll solve and some questions that I hope you'll answer or rather:
1)My nose is pretty clogged with mucus in recent times (probably for detoxification from new chemical species), and this does not allow me to fully feel the smell of food
2)Apart from organic plants and organic eggs I cannot buy meat and fish for economic reasons
3)I cannot recognize what food my body needs despite the smell, let me explain, I cannot understand the mechanism of  olfactory and gustatory attraction (I would like you to explain to me how to behave during a meal)
4)The fruit must be cut to be able to smell it? In this case, the instinct would make me throw all the food if I did eat only one and I could not afford this cost
5)As for the eggs you must open them to see if my instincts want? You know I can not make me capable of the fact that an egg will have a good smell from the outside

Thank you for listening, I hope you can help me,
Simone 

PS: sorry for my english

[Iguana]

Welcome, Simone!

There are some foodstuff such as eggs which have almost no smell. In this case, we can test it to get their taste. But "organic" doesn't mean much for us: it's ok for plant foods, but for animal foods it's not. You can't buy fish? What about gathering shellfish on the coast or fishing yourself? Do you live in town?

You don't need to cut the fruits to feel their smell.

It's not so complicated, forget the memories you have of various foods, just eat what makes you salivate and what tastes good.

I know, it's simple to say, but in practice we miss the proper training that our parents should have given us. Instead, we have been trained the exact wrong way: to eat whatever is put on our plate, never spit, eat even if we don't like it and so on. We've got get rid of all this wrong habits.



 

[Wattlebird]

Hello everyone, my name is Simone,

But I have some problems that I hope you'll solve and some questions that I hope you'll answer or rather:
1)My nose is pretty clogged with mucus in recent times (probably for detoxification from new chemical species), and this does not allow me to fully feel the smell of food
2)Apart from organic plants and organic eggs I cannot buy meat and fish for economic reasons
3)I cannot recognize what food my body needs despite the smell, let me explain, I cannot understand the mechanism of  olfactory and gustatory attraction (I would like you to explain to me how to behave during a meal)
4)The fruit must be cut to be able to smell it? In this case, the instinct would make me throw all the food if I did eat only one and I could not afford this cost
5)As for the eggs you must open them to see if my instincts want? You know I can not make me capable of the fact that an egg will have a good smell from the outside

Thank you for listening, I hope you can help me,
Simone 

PS: sorry for my english

Hi Simone,
yes, welcome.
For what its worth, meat and fish can often be purchased/procured for little cost.
For example, I have a fellow instinctive eater staying at present and we have eaten heartily. As far as meats/fish go, items like lamb kidneys, liver, heart, beef tongue, marrow bones and less desirable cuts of meat can all be purchased cheaply.
Items such as shellfish, sea-urchin can be foraged for free if you have access to coastline, or alternatively there are many varieties of fish, from small whitebait type to larger open ocean fish, which are not often considered the most desirable fish for one reason or another, but yet taste great, and are not expensive.
As to organic, one can often get quality produce from farmers markets, direct from farmers, friends gardens, foraged yourself and even some supermarkets that is not 'organic', yet is of wonderful quality (and generally cheaper) and so saving money.
One starts to trust in the taste/smell appeal of a food and so whether it is labelled 'organic' or not, may not be so important.
The clogged nose will work itself out as detoxification progresses.
As well as using the senses, also try new foods, particularly animal foods.
Ultimately, in my view, the organism is intelligent, and will not lead us astray if we are aware and mindful observing the responses and attractiveness of certain foods.
Enjoy the journey, one mouthful at a time. 
Kind wishes, J

[TylerDurden]

Where in Italy do you live? Do you speak Italian well?  Being able to speak the language is VERY  important and will mean you will be far more easily able to locate raw animal foods you can afford.

The problem with Italy is that there is not enough arable land so that some meats, like beef, are a bit more expensive. There isn't any real organic or grassfed meat industry in Italy as yet. However there are certain online organic sources/directories:-

http://www.biobank.it/en/indexBIO.asp

All that said, maybe I ought to give myself as an example, so as to help you a bit further:-

I know almost no Italian, so, when I go to my Italian home during the summer holidays, I often run into difficulties. In my town in Liguria, I have access to a fish-market which has a lot of very expensive raw seafood(some of which goes up in price by 50(!) euros per kilo as tourist season approaches - unsurprisingly, the market is Mafia-owned). However, it has a lot of very cheap raw seafood as well(less than 5  euros per kilo). I don't always like the taste of the dirt-cheap fish much, admittedly, but they're fine as a substitute, and I also buy a bit of  very expensive swordfish here and there. The fish is mostly wildcaught, not farmed, except for the salmon, and probably the shrimp/prawns.

In the past I used to  buy raw tongues from local butchers at 17 euros per kilo. Those tongues are tasteless since the cattle are fed on a lot of grains, not recommended. I have since bought raw horsemeat from local horse-butchers(cavalheria). The horsemeat from cavalherias   costs anywhere between 4 euros to 20 euros per kilo. More usually, I find meat costing between 7 to 12 euros per kilo,  when I go there. I always buy the cheapest meats there, as I find no difference re nutritional quality between different cuts of meat. Now, the horsemeat tastes much better than the grainfed beef tongue I used to buy, so I am guessing that the horses are mostly raised on grass, though probably also on, I fear, some oats/grains.

I live close to the French border but haven't heard of easy sources of meats. I  am aware that there are a number of small-time grassfed meat French and Italian farmers in the hills away from the coast from whom I could buy sheep or goat carcasses, but I would need a car/driving-licence and the ability to speak Italian, if in Italy.

I also used to prise raw limpets from the coast where I live, but, sadly, the supply has vanished, I fear due to pollution from boats. I still scavenge for raw  eggs from female sea-urchins as they taste amazing. Going harpooning is a waste of time, though, as the area is over-fished like most of the Mediterranean, so only tiny fishes exist right next to where I live.

[Iguana]

Yes, I concur with Tyler and Wattlebird.

And I forgot to say: don't waste too much money on expensive organic fruits and vegetables. We can very often find very cheap (even sometimes free) ripe or overripe fruits from farmer's markets or shops, not necessarily labeled as organic but nevertheless grown without or with little chemicals. Just avoid the most obviously "chemical" and "industrial" beautifully looking fruits and veggies.

In France and in Switzerland, there is sometimes cheap, vacuum packed "chilled" lamb from New Zealand in supermarkets. This is very good meat from exclusively grass fed mutton raised without any medicine. Australian imported horse meat is fine and cheap too. Meat is very appetizing when aged, hung for some weeks on a hook in a fridge. Sometimes fresh meat is tasty too, but especially at the beginning, aged, somewhat dried meat is generally tastier. 

[Simone]

To TylerDurden, I live in Italy and I'm Italian...  Do you think I am American? So I speak good English 
I am aware of the fact that organic does not mean grass fed,  however, only few farmers in Italy have grass fed meat but they ship it frozen, which deceives the instinctive stop...
I live in a city, Milan where I can find organic farmed fish (which is always better than conventional) and at the supermarket there are clams and mussels vacuum (but I'm not sure they are caught).
In a natural food store I found some certified organic wild salmon but was treated at -40 ° that is good against anisakis but not for the instinct

[TylerDurden]

No, I'd simply forgotten that "Simone" was an Italian male name  and assumed you were a French woman called "Simone". Silly me. But you do speak very good English.

I assure you that while prefrozen grassfed meat meat is not  100% perfect, it is WAY healthier for you than nonfrozen grainfed meat. All that freezing does is reduce the taste a bit, but as long as you eat it quickly once thawed, it's OK.

Organic farmed fish is NOT better than nonorganic wildcaught fish. Wildcaught seafood is ALWAYS better than the finest organic-raised type of fish. I have seen very few organic fish farms which fed their farmed fish on decent foods. That said, farmed clams and mussels, while not ideal, are certainly  "less worse" than other farmed seafood. I think(?) that farmers just plant them in the sea and let them filter nutrients like their wildcaught versions do.

If you know of any hunters, you might be able to get hold of raw wild game from them very cheaply.

[Simone]

This site http://www.grassfedeurope.com/catalog/fatti.php?language=en&osCsid=lahn7hpmbg3ng8s9jb09350353 sells grass fed meat preserved in this way:
The meat you order will be vacuum packed and delivered in a special cold box. The addition of frozen gel packs maintain the meat at a safe temperature for up to 36 hours or more. Your meat box will be delivered by express courier within 24 hours. The meat will keep for up to 5-6 days in the refrigerator, but we recommend freezing it the day it arrives.

The problem is always the price

[TylerDurden]

If they deliver it chilled(ie just filled with ice-packs) then that's even better than prefrozen.

My advice:-

either get raw horsemeat from a local Cavalheria which is not too bad an idea. Or buy raw, grassfed meats  and reduce costs by going  in for Intermittent Fasting:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting

[Iguana]

Ah, 21 € / kg is expensive, yes. I get wild boar from a hunter friend for 10 € / kg and NZ lamb is between 7 to 10 € / kg at supermarkets. You should be able to find some in Milano. (BTW, I understand quite well that you can't go fishing around there!   )

Wild boar front legs are 18.81 € / kg at Orkos.

[Simone]

I've tried to buy some cassia fistula on Orkos but is written that there aren't payment methods... It's common?

[Iguana]

Call them on the phone any day from 6 to 10 pm.
00331 64 60 21 11

They send your order at your address with a bill you can pay within one week or so.

[Simone]

However, to start can I always eat organic meat since I cannot find grass fed meat or not?

[Iguana]

You probably won't have problems by eating once a raw "organic" beefsteak to start, but if it becomes regular it may still cause troubles.

[Simone]

After so long, I finally decided to try the instinctive nutrition.
Today at lunch I put on the table dates, stark delicious apples, kind lettuce, romaine lettuce, carrots and tomatoes and I smell one by one these foods. However I could not figure out if there was salivation and especially I could not understand what had smell better. I could solve these problems by going for 1-2 weeks in Perpignan in Mas Belric in France, home to a new istinctive nutrition center but unfortunately I do not have the economic means...

Can you help me? Thank you

[Iguana]

Perpignan in Mas Belric in France, home to a new istinctive nutrition center

What's that? AFAIK there's nothing at all of that kind.

[LePatron7]

Iguana, I'm not sold on instincto. What do you think about when a wild animal find food after not eating for a few days. Does it smell it, taste out, not like it and walk away?

[Iguana]

How do you think that animal knows if it's a food for him or not? How do you think a mammal finds food?

[LePatron7]

Not just by smell and taste. You can see a familiar view, a dead carcass.

But it sees a dead carcass, smells it. It didn't like the smell but it's hungry and food is scarce. Does it eat it?

also it seems instincto assumed theres a unlimited and infinite range of foods. Theres not. Unlike humans, most animals can't just pick between bananas or beef. There is what's available so they eat it.

[Iguana]

Not just by smell and taste. You can see a familiar view, a dead carcass.

But it sees a dead carcass, smells it. It didn't like the smell but it's hungry and food is scarce. Does it eat it?

Obviously, scavengers and carnivores are attracted by the smell of a dead carcass, to take your example. They smell it  from very far, long before they can see it.

also it seems instincto assumed theres a unlimited and infinite range of foods. Theres not. Unlike humans, most animals can't just pick between bananas or beef. There is what's available so they eat it.

I don’t understand your point. Of course, no one can eat something which is not available.

[LePatron7]

My question is how would instincto work in nature. Where foods is scarce and you eat or starve

[Iguana]

Ok. Then we eat what is edible. Our senses of smell and taste tell us what is the most edible stuff and prevent us from self-poisoning. This has actually led some of us to discover and eat some unknown foods (at least unknown from the person whether it is edible or toxic), which is a great advantage for surviving in the wild. 

[LePatron7]

How about with me when it comes to organs and stuff like that. I don't like the taste of some organs. Does that mean I shouldn't eat them? I feel goods after eating them. But they don't taste or smell appealing.

[Iguana]

How about with me when it comes to organs and stuff like that. I don't like the taste of some organs. Does that mean I shouldn't eat them? I feel goods after eating them. But they don't taste or smell appealing.

An animal would never eat something which doesn't smell or taste appealing and I would not eat (and even spit) something which I don't like the taste.

There seems to be a contradiction in the facts that you don’t like the taste of some organs but nevertheless feel good after eating them. It seems strange to me, but it is possible just like the fact that most people feel good after drinking a cup of coffee.

“cause and effects are distant in time and space in complex systems, while at the same time there is a tendency to look for causes near the events sought to be explained. Attention is drawn to the symptoms of difficulty rather than the underlying cause. (…) the root cause of the existence of the problem is not addressed (e.g. lack of upfront knowledge and resources, lack of understanding of system interactions and emergent system properties).”
Ronald J. Ziegler, Complexity Reduction in Automotive Design and Development,  University of Michigan, 2005

[LePatron7]

So the feeling I get from eating grass fed organ meats is comparable to the effect of coffee, our some other neolithic food?  Isn't out possible I derive some benefit from it even if it didn't taste good? The cod I ate didn't taste that good so I added lime ro mask not liking the taste. But after I felt great and did a lot of school work which is usually be to unmotivatedd to do.

My diet has been very deficient on iodine, do based on instincto out should have tasted great since I needed the iodine. After I felt god.

Also how do we know animals really enjoy the taste of all their foods.