GCB:Eating meat regularly is harmful to health

[PaleoPhil]

@Van, Yes, the jury is still out and there will never be total agreement on all aspects of diet, gut microbiome, and health.

I suspect that Ron Rosedale is right about overdosing on protein, but I doubt that overdosing on fat is the answer. VLC Paleo defenders have been telling those struggling on it to just "eat more fat" for years (one dude even has that in his signature at the Caveman forum LOL, which seems to have become remarkably quiet in recent months, interestingly), and it hasn't been working. A more diverse diet seems to be more the way to go, at least for me and others I've seen report benefits from adding Paleo-type foods containing missing prebiotics, starch or carbs back into their diets, bringing them more in line with the diets of Paleo ancestors.

I was breast fed. I've already reported repeatedly that I was given antibiotic treatments in the past, and that I suspect that people who have a history of antibiotic treatment are particularly susceptible to problems on diets low in prebiotics and probiotics, so it would seem that you share my suspicion. The antibiotic-damaged are the canaries in the coal mine. We tend to be the first to be the first to show symptoms (especially those who cook all their meats and don't eat enough organs or fat), but we aren't the only ones. It can take years for the problems with chronic VLC to become apparent. Early benefits are common, which can make it harder to recognize the long-term issues.

One of the common misunderstandings about resistant starch is an assumption that it feeds good and bad bacteria equally. The research and people's reports do not support this assumption. On the contrary, RS reportedly carries the bad bacteria out of the body while feeding the good ones.

The American Gut  Human Microbiome Project is not studying just the Hadza, they are studying people all around the world and anyone can contribute their own sample. They are begging VLCers and Paleoists like you to submit your samples. If you think their samples are inadequate, then submit your own. It does cost $99 to get your sample analyzed, unfortunately.

I'm not assuming anything about the HGP's research, just going by what I've read about it and other scientific research, as well as my own experience and that reported by many others. Here are some examples:

http://americangut.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/module1_Sept_16_small.pdf

Paleo dieters showed a bit higher firmicutes than the general population and Paleo dieters had a lowere level of bacteria known to be inflammatory. LC Paleo dieter Shannon Ford's firmicutes were almost as scarce as Michael Pollen's after he had a course of antibiotics, whereas higher carb Paleo dieter Jeff Leach's were far more abundant.

In case you think that low firmicutes is a good thing, based on a past study that suggested an association with obesity, think again:

"A few years ago, it was thought that if you had a high level of Firmicutes, which is a phylum of bacteria, that it was more predictive of maybe an obese phenotype, and if you had less Firmicutes, you were more likely to be lean, but that turned out not to be true." - Jeff Leach, http://chriskresser.com/you-are-what-your-bacteria-eat-the-importance-of-feeding-your-microbiome-with-jeff-leach

http://humanfoodproject.com/preliminary-characterization-of-the-american-gut-population/

Tim / 23 September 2013
Could you discuss a bit about the Fig 5 fecal graph? Why are you further to the left than ‘Pollan pre’? Could one get much further left than you?
Reply

Jeff Leach / 29 September 2013
Good Q. I eat lots of dietary fiber from a lot of sources. I also eat lots of cellulose – ie, the parts of the plants that many folks discard. So, my higher levels of Firmicutes is being driven by lots and lots of ruminococcus – that is, I look like grazing animals (eg, white rhino!). Pollan has tons and tons of Prevotella – which are part of the Bacteroidetes phylum. Note also, there was data years ago that indicated a high level of Firmicutes was predictive of obesity – that is, more Firmicutes, more junk in the trunk. This has not held up as more data comes in. Me for example, BMI of 25.


...

Tatertot Tim / 21 December 2013
... This young lady just posted her AmGut results and compared to mine–world of difference.
We – similar diets
She – lots of antibiotics
Me – no antibiotics for 10+ years, and megadosing with resistant starch.
My result showed I had 11X the number of bifidobacteria of anyone else–that is amazing when you think about it. All my other phyla/species were in line with a well-diversified gut microbiome. Laura’s showed very restricted growth, hardly any diversity at all.
I’d like to see if ANYONE anywhere has more bifido than I do, resistant starch is a proven builder of friendly gut bugs.
Have a look: http://www.ancestralizeme.com/2013/12/20/my-american-gut-results

"cessation of smoking results in a rise in Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. And I posited that a reasonable assumption is that picking up the smoking habit does the reverse. ...

“Tatertot” Tim’s results, after extended supplementation with Resistant Starch in the form of raw, unmodified potato starch, did not show [high Firmicutes] — he had higher than average Bacteroidetes & lower than average Firmicutes. Michael Pollan and Jeff Leach — plant-lovers both — had the reverse. (But Tim’s reports DID show much higher than average Actinobacteria, specifically Bifidobacteria, which may explain why Resistant Starch is leading to many beneficial effects. I touched on that here and at the end of the smoking study post.)

...the fact that both smoking cessation AND plant consumption lead to this [high firmicutes/bacteroidetes] ratio certainly tips us further toward that conclusion. And there is plenty of more evidence that paints a very convincing picture, in my opinion:

What else do we know about Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes?

Besides the obesity link, I have yet to see anything correlating high firmicutes to disease.
Quite a few disease-specific studies correlate high bacteroidetes to more disease (Type 1 Diabetes, IBD, Obesity, Metabolic Disease)
Firmicutes are almost exclusively gram positive. They do not produce endotoxins, and so they cannot contribute to endotoxin-induced inflammatory disease.
Bacteroidetes are ALL gram negative. All endotoxin producers.
Firmicutes — specifically the butyrate-producing Clostridia clusters — live in the mucosal lining of the intestine. It’s where all the butyrate production is, the preferred energy source for colonocytes. They seem to be the guardians and nourishers of the gut barrier.
Bacteroidetes, conversely, are predominant in the luminal space — the hollow space within the large intestine.

... the actinobacteria/proteobacteria ratio. That’s about as solid of a microbiome health marker as there is [high is believed to be good]. Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes is much shakier — still lots to figure out there.
 
http://mrheisenbug.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/eating-plants-quitting-smoking-was-i-right-about-firmicutes


The microbiome/brain connection:
http://mrheisenbug.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/gut-bacteria-iq-could-it-really-be/

Colon Cancer Linked to Low Diversity of Gut Bacteria
December 06, 2013
http://www.livescience.com/41767-colon-cancer-gut-bacteria-diversity.html
"colon cancer patients tended to have higher levels of Fusobacterium, a type of bacteria that appears to promote inflammation in the gut, which can fuel cancer growth.

And the patients often had lower levels of Clostridia, a bacterial class that may prevent the development of colon cancer by helping to break down dietary fiber and carbohydrates, according to the study."

http://humanfoodproject.com/can-a-high-fat-paleo-diet-cause-obesity-and-diabetes

...humans are 90% microbe and only 10% human. Humbling.

Spawned by the success and technical achievements of the Human Genome Project, an explosion in our understanding of the role of the microbiome (all the genes of our gut microbiota) in human health has literally flipped modern medicine and the understanding of what makes us sick on its head. Importantly, even though dynamic interactions with our microbiome is conditioned by influences as varied as birthing method (vaginal vs c-section), life time exposure to antibiotics, and general lifestyle choices, diet appears to be driving the species diversity of our microbiota and the much-needed functions they encode.

http://humanfoodproject.com/sorry-low-carbers-your-microbiome-is-just-not-that-into-you/

Depending on whom you talk with, a low carb diet is many different things to many people. I think most misinterpret a Paleo or Primal lifestyle as somehow low carb. It can be, but most folks eat a diversity and quantity of whole plants that exceed that of the average American – often by a long shot. It can sometimes be a little low carb-like due the absence of high caloric foods made from grains. But I often find people who skip grains, sugar and the like as really paying attention to whole plants in their diet – which is, of course, a good thing. But a bona fide low, low carb eater is another animal all together. Whether you draw that line at 25, 50, or 75g a day of carbs, its low I’m afraid from the perspective of your gut bugs. Especially if those carbs contain a limited amount of resistant starch and other dietary fibers – food for gut bacteria.
That said, even though someone who eats as much as 200-500g of carbs a day can still be starving their guts bugs if those foods contain little to now indigestible substrates (fiber), a generic rule of thumb (albeit an ugly measure) is less overall carbohydrates – especially when you start dropping below 75-100g a day – translates into a dramatic drop in the amount of food reaching your colon where the vast majority of your intestinal microbial community resides. (There are exceptions to every rule, but follow my logic for a moment).

When it comes to the health and well being of your gut microbes, nothing matters more than fermentable substrates (You can read about here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – you get the idea). As the rules/tenants of basic microbial ecology go, a reduction in fermentable substrates derived from carbohydrates means less energy sources for the microbes – who depend on host-derived substrates as well, as in the case of mucin-degraders like Akkermansia. As fermentation drops, so to does the byproducts of fermentation which include short chain fatty acids (primarily acetate, butyrate, propionate), organic acids, and gases like hydrogen. All of this can and will dramatically shift the pH of the colonic environment. As it stands in a healthy or normal gut, the pH of the colon changes from proximal to distal end, being more acidic in the proximal (front) end than the tail end – mainly as a function of more rapid fermentation as food items empty from the small intestine. As the pH shifts to being more alkaline from less fermentation, a number of shoes begin to drop (or can).


http://chriskresser.com/you-are-what-your-bacteria-eat-the-importance-of-feeding-your-microbiome-with-jeff-leach

> Diet is only one piece of the formula.  Lifestyle is a big component, and again, we see that in hunter-gatherers.  Like, in Tanzania we see that men eat much more protein and fat than women, and women eat a lot more fiber and probably resistant starch, so it will be really interesting to see if their microbiomes are different.  When we look in the United States, when we look at 1000 men and women in the American Gut Project, they look pretty much the same at the phylum level.  There are the same number of Firmicutes, the same number of Bacteroidetes, so there’s no separation between men and women yet.  Evolution teaches us that more than likely men probably did consume more protein and fat than women if the Hadza are a good referent, and so we should expect, based on diet, that we should see some differences, but I think what is going to happen is that the environment is the great equalizer.  The fact that you share the same water, share the same soil, you’re covered in the same feces and blood of the animals that you consume and the dirt from the plants you dig.  I think that ultimately levels the playing field, and that social interaction and that movement of bacteria is very fluid between individuals, the soil, the plants, and especially the animals.  So, it’ll be really interesting to see how that shakes out.

> I actually consume a considerable amount of fiber, I personally eat between 50 and 150 grams of fiber a day.  I try to consume 20 to 30 species of plants a week if I can.  So, I get a huge quantity and diversity.  I’m interested in it because fiber is the primary substrate or food, if you will, for bacteria, so if you kind of look at it from an evolutionary perspective, if I was in charge of the USDA and Health and Human Services for a day – which God help us, I’m not… for a lot of reasons! – but if I was in charge of My Plate, which used to be the US Food Pyramid, I would argue that probably the most breathtaking change in the human diet that’s had the greatest impact on not only our microbiome, but our health, I would argue that that’s the drop in the diversity and quantity of dietary fiber.  For example, you see in Africa 6-month-old Hadza kids that are being weaned onto food are getting 100 to 200 grams of dietary fiber a day, every day.

It seems that you have made several assumptions. Why not look for the information instead of just guessing about it? Please read up on RS and the HGP before making any more negative assumptions about them and asking questions based on the assumptions. I don't want to end up like Richard and Tatertot, spending countless hours answering endless misguided questions, often over and over again. I encourage folks to do their own digging and if you dig and dig and still can't find answers, then I'll be happy to answer your questions.

Take out the LARGE amounts and replace with adequate amounts and the equation might be wholly different.

It doesn't yet seem clear that GCB actually eliminated all meat aside from bee brood. That's what the vegan propagandist wrote, but Iguana seems to be saying that that was a lie and that GCB actually only did that temporarily, if I understand correctly.

I think GCB, as I've mentioned before is suspect more for this than looking at RS, or maybe we can agree that he was suspect in not looking at both.

Yes, given that he apparently hasn't even discussed RS, it does sound like both excessive protein and deficiency in prebiotics could have been factors, and maybe there were other imbalances in his diet. I agree that the experience of GCB and his wife and other people suggests that the instinctive stop doesn't guarantee that people are avoiding dietary imbalances, especially in the modern environment. As GCB indicated, what he's doing is an experiment, not a guaranteed path to success.

Which is more likely, that our ancestors consumed lots and lots of fat, averaging say the 70-80% or more that some ZCers and VLCers eat, and discarded much of the protein and carbier parts of animal carcasses, and passed up most of the plant foods they came across, over the millions of years of human existence, and presumably the women were mainly hunters as well, or that the women gathered lots of plant foods, including with digging sticks (or antlers), and that various peoples ate a fair amount of plant foods during the year, and savored the carbier parts of animals, so that they didn't need to eat such extremely high levels of animal fat throughout the year? Why would we just assume that "eat more fat" is the answer to nearly every problem?

It seems that in "instincto" we eat the broadest range and variety of foods amongst all types of raw diets.

Yes, some credit is due for that, and you seem to eat a broader range than even most Instinctos, which I suspect is part of the reason for your long term better success.

It puts precisely in a natural way the necessary environmental constraints on us so that a balanced diet and vibrant health might eventually emerge.

Indeed, supermarkets and farmers markets don't have the natural constraints of the wild, therefore we by necessity must use our mental faculties to restore some modicum of those natural constraints. I argued in this forum long ago for not over-relying on the aliesthetic senses. It's heartening to see even GCB moving more in this direction recently.

A similar example of how the constraints at work in the wild led just by themselves to a balanced diet is the phenomenon of the usual and necessary practice of « nose to tail » eating of the animals that were hunted or raised. For instance, muscle is rich in methionine and skin, bone…rich in glycine and so being forced to eat, EVEN IF LESS TASTY, the whole animal results automatically in a balanced glycine to methionine ratio and more generally a balanced nutrition can naturally emerge in this way.

Bingo!

PS I won't come back to the forum. I'm only very temporarily in civilized country with internet. Greetings.

Thanks for honoring us with your input, and may the road go easy with you.

Africans eat much more of it because their staples are tubers and not fruit.

Indeed, and not just Africans. Every nation earth whose RS intake has been sampled has had a significantly higher intake than that of the USA. It seems to be one of the biggest holes in most versions of Instincto and Paleo.

[van]

Phil I never suggested overeating fat.  I just noted that it's the one food group that one can eat without causing damage, more of a side note than any sort of instruction.   Many bacteria multiply within  ten minutes.  I've read how RS is supposed to carry out bad bacteria.  Only thing is they'd have multiplied many many many times, especially with a ready food source,  by the time they get pooped out.  Seems a little fanciful to me.  Thanks for the references, am still learning.  So do you really think that the inuits, both the sea faring tribes, and the caribou hunting tribes stashed away those tubers you mentioned Routinely to get themselves through 9 months of winter?  Haven't heard any accounts other than a short mention by you that they ate them.  Seems like the early explorers, like Steffeson would have mentioned sacks of potatoes that they dog sledded around with them where ever they went if that was the case.   I mention this little item to remind all of us how easy it is to believe and support that which we are in favor of in the moment. 

[Inger]

Francois, my intention with participating in this discussion is to save others from the harm I did to my body during my instincto phase, some is even irreparable (like losing 2 teeth...)

I think the post from Gerard says what I think in a much better way than I am capable of so quoting it here again;

"What was the reason they ate too much muscle meat?"

Undoubtedly it’s because we have to LEARN a lot of things in modern environment in order to eat and stay healthy, in particular, what foods to eat and how much (as well as to LEARN to eat a given food never eaten before).  And they didn’t do this because of  instincto theory, hammered into their heads by Burger, and that foolishely states that they are supposed to find out so much better by themselves by means of encoded sensory signals or an omnipotent « instinct ».

Yet the bitter truth is that finding this out is by no means « instinctive » . More precisely though « innate » as well as learned sensory attractions and repulsions exist indeed they are just by far not capable to do the job. For many people fat and organs not to speak of brain, tail, skin, blood etc are much less attractive and easier to (over)eat than "matured " muscle meat, and so were even often not made available at all to instinctos.

By the way "matured" muscle meat, an addiction of those instinctos, is rather a non paleo thing.
Impossible to achieve it, for instance in a typical African village, without a fridge and connection to an electric grid and modern technology.  Meat or fish there in wet 30°C ambiant ROT in a few hours. In contrast in such villages people know perfectly well by CULTURE and NECESSITY that they have to eat everything in an animal or a fish and, once they have learned to do so as kids  they do it with great relish.
Once again both culture and/or environmental constraints are indispensable and conspire to achieve dietary balance, not a matter of sensory signals.

So from what I got upon reading some of your posts, Eve, unlike the unfortunate instinctos, you have most likely greatly benefited precisely from experience , knowledge and thus CULTURE gathered outside the instinctosphere in particular in America about how to balance a diet rich in animal food.

I feel also that you clearly understand that low carb is by ESSENCE not instincto, as once practised in Europe, which included by the way also usually a tremendous overeating of fruit and fructose and not even much RS which as Paleophil underlines might be important. Africans eat much more of it because their staples are tubers and not fruit.

Moreover, Eve, nor do you practise instincto just because you’re using sensory signals when eating. We should use them again but they cannot  by themselves rule food choice and intake.

So I’m not at all surprised by you succeeding with your diet.

As can also be seen, with respect to « dietetics », Burger, after an amusing rant about ideologies and dogmatic thinking of others and that obviously first of all is so nicely and funnily relevant to instincto itself, reminds us again :

« That's why I was looking for a different approach: extract the answers from the organism, and to consider always the results objectively. »

And this is precisely the reason of instincto failure because as I hope it’s now fairly clear the yet missing answers (in instincto theory) cannot unfortunately be found in but be looked for outside of our organism.[/i]

[Inger]

Francois in my attempt to get you understand where I am coming from, some more thoughts of mine.

Look how much our world have changed, just in the last 100 years. What does this mean to our cells and us as human beings? What has it do not with natural living anymore? We have  a ton of unnatural EMF surrounding us, practically impossible to escape. We have artificial lights etc. We have shops with anything you wish from the whole world 24/7.

How on earth could it be possible to rely on our instincts anymore. When I smell an orange, it smells way better to me than meat or fat. Way stronger. I would eat it. But I do not. Because of many reasons. It is heavily cultivated. It is totally unnatural in Finland in winter, sugar and high stress environment (EMF, light pollution, modern life..) is not a good combo at all....

We need to let go of dogma, and look how can we better survive in this crazy modern word of ours. We need science! Good science. How does it affect the cell, how can we better stay healthy today? It is not the same world it once was.

I gladly choose coconut oil over fruit any time if I need fat and have no other (more natural choice). Or fatty fresh and raw nuts. They both are not natural to this country either (except hazelnuts) but I am not dogmatic and I do what works for me. I would choose fat over sugar any time. Sure I do what I can to find the best fat source. And eat local. But even if not perfect it is still better than a sugar source.

We need to be forward minded, and always think CONTEXT! I thought this was just a excellent point of Gerards;

And this is precisely the reason of instincto failure because as I hope it’s now fairly clear the yet missing answers (in instincto theory) cannot unfortunately be found in but be looked for outside of our organism.

Gosh.. even the last 10 years the world have changed so dramatically in modern society, it is not funny.
If we look around it is clear what is the main issue.

Technology. Clothing. Modern comfort....

Francois, if you live in the countryside and spend your time outside barefeet in the sun picking figs from your fig tree in the yard, it is an entirely different thing than to say someone living in a city (or having cold winters or spending much time in front of computers or even other issues that I am not going to mention here) should include the figs in his diet, if hes taste buds say so.

Sometimes I think you totally forget the reality we live in. You keep telling we should eat like "our ancestors" the primates... bonobos etc. but we live an entirely different life... and the food they ate/eat is entirely different too from what you get in the shops... sorry :-( and we also have very different brain and guts.

Is it socially less "acceptable" to munch on raw fat and meat and organs etc. than fruit and veggies? You bet! But is it the social acceptability that has to rule our diet.. eh? NO. I do not care one bit about what other thinks about my food. I care about what works for me. What improves me, what makes me strong and healthy.

[Iguana]

Thanks Gerard for finally making your stance clear, understandable as well as free of insults and personal attacks. Still there are some disagreements between us, but at least we agree on many important points. Everyone perceive different parts of the reality and has his/her own bias: I have mine and you have yours, but being civil and amiable facilitates mutual understanding and then a consensus ceases to be out of reach. 

No one can pretend to hold the ultimate truth, but if we work amiably together to combine the results of our experiments and research instead of assaulting and insulting each other, we may perhaps move forward.

All the best,
François

[Iguana]

How on earth could it be possible to rely on our instincts anymore. When I smell an orange, it smells way better to me than meat or fat. Way stronger. I would eat it. But I do not. Because of many reasons. It is heavily cultivated.

Not to me, at least not always. What matters is not the intensity of the smell, but its attractiveness. And, as a rule, a whole fruit with an intact skin which doesn’t have an attractive smell should not but cut to check if a smell appears. This is in addition to the advices to eat a minimum of fruits, and to always prefer wild fruits as much as possible.

I have oranges, tangerines, cherimoyas, kiwis, apples, avocados at home (all grown in Algarve)  and I bought a pineapple from Azores this morning along with a mackerel. I could not feel any smell from these fruits, except for the small, almost wild apples and the pineapple which had an attractive and strong smell. But I was more attracted by the faint smell of the mackerel, so I cut it open and there was milt inside. I ate the fish and its milt. As I was still unsatisfied, I had 3 safus and then 3 small tomatoes.

What I did is against the basic advice (which you seem to ignore as well) of avoiding to put in competition fruits and animal foods. But I nevertheless preferred the animal food, you see!     

We need to let go of dogma, and look how can we better survive in this crazy modern word of ours…

Absolutely. And I feel that you've perceived the instincto advices for beginners as dogmas and don't even know most of them! Did you ever have a proper training with experienced and sane instinctos? If you have had good training and explanations, and / or if you didn’t take rough, flexible rules for rigid dogmas, but instead permanently questioned every point, you would not speak like this and you would not have wasted your money on expensive fruits from Orkos, something long term instinctos seldom do.

I said I will not respond anymore but I’ve done it again! 

Cheers

[goodsamaritan]

I'm super thankful a whole bunch of different philosophies and expert opinions are in this forum, we can just pick and choose what works for us and patients at what time of need or time of adjustment.

Congratulating Tyler / Geoff for the foresight in assembling such a massively informative forum. And thank you to everyone of you who chime in with your opinions and experiences.  Would have been a riot if Aajonus chimed in, may he rest in peace.

[goodsamaritan]

From Alphagruis / Gerard:

Author : instincto drivel ( even more) (IP: 90.6.28.226 , AStrasbourg-752-1-9-226.w90-6.abo.wanadoo.fr)
Whois  : http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/90.6.28.226

« Thanks for honoring us with your input, and may the road go easy with you. »

Thanks, and thanks for honoring me with reading my input, Phil. In fact, sometimes when my road crosses a cyber I attempt to read this forum’s posts and in particular yours. The RS topic is amazing.
We live in a crazy modern world so let’s at least particularly enjoy and take advantage of the positive aspects of it, namely the formidable and unique tool internet really is, to exchange information and so live betterand healthier.
Yet there are not much cybers on my road in particular at sea and, as Lex once told us, I, too, do want to spent the years left doing other things than bothering about diet.

« Thanks Gerard for finally making your stance clear, understandable as well as free of insults and personal attacks. »

François, I’m happy that you consider that I behaved now much better…. I’m very proud of myself now...

My "bad manners", at any rate, might well have helped me to survive in dangerous places like Africa, one cannot be well adapted to everything…

If my message is now more understandable to you please consider it very seriously, and anyway, as Edwin likes to put it, « lighten up » a bit, perhaps don’t identify yourself so intimately with instincto and so  criticisms won’t appear so much as « insults ».

One has to assess the instincto experiment very seriously and without  any kindness, at least in memory of Burger’s wife and other victims and suffering. Sometimes suffering and failure are necessary to learn and later on progress. In America in contrast to Europe the meaning of failure is quite acknowledged and failure not at all considered to be the end of everything.

And I do consider that much has been learned in instincto experiment.

Finally beware of any dogmatism like the plague. And yes even the raw paleo concept must be taken with a big grain of salt. In this respect in Africa i ate occasionally boiled stuff like cassava or small game. BTW the latter is essentially impossible to eat raw in particular « nose to tail », much too tough. Result ? I was unable to observe any negative effect.

Inger reports similar observations, as I can read in her posts.

A sobering experiment for (ex-)instinctos.

Why is this ? Not sure but perhaps simply because once healed by 14 years 100% raw paleo the organism deals very well with occasionnal additional toxic loads. It could even have positive hormetic rather than negative effects.

An important point in this respect as to instincto theory : According to Burger’s view heat generated toxins are new molecules « unknown » to the organism the famous MNO in (French) instincto slang that would possibly need new enzymes to cope with in digestion etc.

I consider this view as too pessimistic (as to the harm caused by heat). It is overblown for at least two reasons :

-First the greatest deal of heat generated molecules also form at room temperature and so are not « unknown »,  there are just usually a lot more in cooked stuff. There is therefore no need of new detoxification pathways and moreover the latter have anyway be proven to have universal character as to the kind of molecules they can handle.

-Second contrary to the host genome, healthy gut flora genomes are in fact able to evolve rapidly and so possibly adapt much faster within days or weeks to new foods or food habits and so help to metabolize new food components. And this gut flora plays a major role in digestion and health.

In other words adaptation is by far not just a matter of slow million years variation in our own genome.

All the best.

Thanks so much again Edwin for allowing my input.

[PaleoPhil]

Why not let Gerard have an account in case he wants to post a thing or two in the future? He seems to be behaving well and he is contributing some interesting stuff.

-Sometimes suffering and failure are necessary to learn and later on progress.
-Finally beware of any dogmatism like the plague.
-It could even have positive hormetic rather than negative effects.

Good stuff. Hormesis seems to be one of the key features of nature.

- Yet there are not much cybers on my road in particular at sea and, as Lex once told us, I, too, do want to spent the years left doing other things than bothering about diet.

Yeah, with luck perhaps we'll hit the right diet/health points well enough that we don't have to think much about it any more, except for scientific curiosity if we wish. Lex appears to think he has reached that point, and for a while it seemed to me he had at least come close for his needs, but since learning more about prebiotics and the Old Friends Hypothesis, it's less clear. The most concerning thing is that people deficient in good gut flora reportedly are developing serious illnesses while feeling great and having excellent basic health markers that physicians focus on. The physicians don't know what to look for because they haven't dealt with VLC "Paleo" dieters before. By the time the problems are recognized, it can be too late.

-First the greatest deal of heat generated molecules also form at room temperature and so are not « unknown »,  there are just usually a lot more in cooked stuff. There is therefore no need of new detoxification pathways and moreover the latter have anyway be proven to have universal character as to the kind of molecules they can handle.

Right, for example, AGEs form within the body as well as in cooking, so it is possible that there's a hormetic level of cooking. However, if so, no one knows where it lies. Once again we're left with personal experience to determine what works for us.

-Second contrary to the host genome, healthy gut flora genomes are in fact able to evolve rapidly and so possibly adapt much faster within days or weeks to new foods or food habits and so help to metabolize new food components. And this gut flora plays a major role in digestion and health.

Yes, they adapt more rapidly than scientists initially guessed. It will be interesting what the microbiome research reveals in the future.

-In other words adaptation is by far not just a matter of slow million years variation in our own genome.

It's also not all positive adaptation, though. Some of the changes could be seen as degeneration. For example, most people probably wouldn't think of the smaller jaws and teeth, thinner skulls, finer bones, and smaller brains and bodies of humans, on average, over the past 30-40 thousand years, as being positive adaptations.

[Iguana]

I’ve always considered your posts very seriously, Gerard. A few of them contained the most interesting critics of the instincto theory I’ve ever seen. I’ve never considered these critics as insults. On the contrary, I’ve welcomed them. What I can’t stand is, on one hand the public attacks on a person (because it is irrelevant and obstructs the road to a rational and fruitful discussion), and on the other hand a torpedoing presented as if the “instincto ship” has been sunk while the attack damaged a random but similarly looking ship.

You and I have a divergent perception of the “instincto” theory and practice.

I can’t identify myself as an “instincto” because such a species doesn’t exist. I’ve only practiced instinctive raw paleo nutrition during 26 years as an interesting counter-experiment against the global experiment in which the whole human species embarked itself in the Neolithic era. We will all die one day and I don’t particularly desire to live old. Enjoying life is much more important and by eating this way I enjoy my food much more than I generally enjoyed cooked food. The disappearance of health problems due to cooking is a plus. I could never have followed any restrictive diet: it’s a bit like “all or nothing” for me.

The only dogma I have is to question everything and to remain free to alter my ideas any time without pain because they are not an intrinsic part of myself. I’ve never considered the instincto as the ultimate truth. When Nicole died, many so called “instinctos” were distressed because they thought eating this way would make us bulletproof against cancer and other diseases. I never thought so since there are too many possible causes of cancer; for instance most of us have eaten standard cooked food during decades and it’s not impossible that delayed consequences appear much latter.

It doesn’t matter much for me who’s right and who’s wrong, you or GCB. There are values more important than that for me. I’m just curious and try to show which one is the “instincto ship” to attack - I mean to question. The detailed description of that ship were only discussed orally, and still we all have a somewhat different view of it. Of course, the sea and weather conditions on which it sails are of utmost importance, as you point out.       

If you happen to sail back to Africa from a port in France, you could make a stop into Lagos harbor and let me know, you’ll be welcome here and we’ll be able to discuss it face to face, relaxing  in hammocks or while eating limpets on the rocks at low tide!

François

[Iguana]

And yes even the raw paleo concept must be taken with a big grain of salt. In this respect in Africa i ate occasionally boiled stuff like cassava or small game. BTW the latter is essentially impossible to eat raw in particular « nose to tail », much too tough. Result ? I was unable to observe any negative effect.

Inger reports similar observations, as I can read in her posts.

A sobering experiment for (ex-)instinctos.

Why is this ? Not sure but perhaps simply because once healed by 14 years 100% raw paleo the organism deals very well with occasionnal additional toxic loads. It could even have positive hormetic rather than negative effects.

Nothing new, Gerard. It’s been known since several decades that some react and some don’t. Even the two “raw paleo ever since birth” twin brothers that you and me know very well do experiment very different consequence after an occasional cooked food ingestion. One gets a very violent reaction and just doesn’t want to try anymore while the other twin has no reaction at all.

[PaleoPhil]

I know Iguana is technically not wanting to be anti-raw, incidentally, but he is using a standard anti-raw argument:- the idea that if something contains  "only"      small amounts of  toxins, that this is OK to eat.

Do you mean that even small amounts of plant toxins are too much and should be avoided? Is there any safe amount? If so, how much?

*sigh* As I pointed out to Iguana, if a plant has antinutrients, it has designed itself to NOT be eaten! Therefore it should be avoided.  As for how I found it out, I googled it, of course.

So we should avoid all foods that contain any antinutrients, like the phytosterols you mentioned? Anything that needs soaking is just out, yes? Thanks for Googling it. How much phytosterols do chufas contain? Would you share some quote excerpts from what you found, please?

Re the other  absurd claim:-  The whole point is that, due to our enhanced science, we know which foods to avoid and can do so.

What is this enhanced science?

Interestingly,  I recall one study of a typical hunter gatherer tribe which stated that they traditionally viewed tubers(like chufas) as low-grade food that they only ate during starvation-periods, whereas they far preferred the taste of meats etc.

I think that was the Hadza tribe, yes? Like these Hadza people here?:


So they all preferred meat above all else and they only ate tubers when starving?

[TylerDurden]

The Hadza tribe was described in that study as using tubers as fallback foods. In other words, using them when other more palatable foods were scarce.

There are plenty of studies on the antinutrients found in chufas. For example:-

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2012.00190.x/full

and "The researchers wrote: ?From the result of the phytochemical analysis, the presence of alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, resins, tannins, sterols and saponins were observed in the raw tuber, however only alkaloids, sterols and resins were observed in the roasted tuber. Analysis of the anti-nutrient composition yielded oxalates (0.25±0.65 g/100 g), phytate (1.97±0.81 mg/100 g), saponins (0.88±0.02/100 g), tannins (9.50±0.46 mg/100 g) and cyanogenic glycosides (1.80±0.69 mg/100 g). " from:-

The researchers wrote: ?From the result of the phytochemical analysis, the presence of alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, resins, tannins, sterols and saponins were observed in the raw tuber, however only alkaloids, sterols and resins were observed in the roasted tuber. Analysis of the anti-nutrient composition yielded oxalates (0.25±0.65 g/100 g), phytate (1.97±0.81 mg/100 g), saponins (0.88±0.02/100 g), tannins (9.50±0.46 mg/100 g) and cyanogenic glycosides (1.80±0.69 mg/100 g).
 

The whole palaeo definition is that anything that needs processing, other than decomposition, is unnatural and should be avoided. This makes sense. After all, even if all toxins get leached out from a food because of a particular process, that very process can be harmful(eg cooking), plus the food, not being designed to be eaten as a food is still not suitable to be eaten(unless one is an animal evolutionarily designed to eat those very plants, of course).
 

[PaleoPhil]

Sorry, to repeat some of the questions (and sorry about the mistakenly repeated post elsewhere), but I don't see answers to some of them yet. What amount of plant toxins/antinutrients is too much? To make it simple, let's use phytosterols as an example.

The whole palaeo definition is that anything that needs processing, other than decomposition, is unnatural and should be avoided.

OK, so anything that needs any soaking should not be eaten at all. Are drying and freezing (such as with a frost or winter freeze) forms of decomposition, or should any foods that require them also be avoided? Are drying or freezing OK ways to preserve foods?

I see it was indeed the Hadza tribe you were referring to. So the Hadza apparently are a good example to look to for some rough guidance, yes? Do you know how much tubers or resistant starch or other prebiotics they eat per day on average over the year and how much per day during times of plenty vs. "starvation"?

the presence of alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, resins, tannins, sterols and saponins were observed in the raw tuber, however only alkaloids, sterols and resins were observed in the roasted tuber.

Which is worse, the raw plant food that's higher in plant toxins, such as raw potato, or the cooked plant food that's lower in plant toxins, but higher in cooking toxins, such as cooked potato?

[Iguana]

Why not let Gerard have an account in case he wants to post a thing or two in the future? He seems to be behaving well and he is contributing some interesting stuff.

Gerard has not been banned: he deleted himself his account and he's free to open a new one.

[PaleoPhil]

I see, thanks.

[Hanna]

Phil, thanks for sharing your findings regarding the microbiom etc.

Second contrary to the host genome, healthy gut flora genomes are in fact able to evolve rapidly and so possibly adapt much faster within days or weeks to new foods or food habits and so help to metabolize new food components. And this gut flora plays a major role in digestion and health.

Yes, they adapt more rapidly than scientists initially guessed.

Could you please elaborate on this? Which foods, for example, have been shown to be metabolized better after days oder weeks because of gut flora (genome) changes?

Iguana:

I could never have followed any restrictive diet

Don’t you restrict yourself, for example, usually to two meals a day? Why do you do that?
Why the instincto guideline to eat preferably „proteins“ instead of sugars/fruit at dinner?

Most eating habits have their rules or at least their regularities and, therefore, their restrictions. Restrictions will turn into habits over time and when they are a habit, intuition (for example, a feeling of hunger or thoughts about eating at your usual mealtime) or alliesthetic signals (for example, rapidly occurring alliesthetic stops with fruit if you are not used to eat much fruit) may support these habits. I’m "afraid" alliesthetic signals won’t by themselves lead us to a balanced composition of our diet.

BTW, a true instinct shouldn`t work only with smart persons or „proper training“.

Any behavior is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience (that is, in the absence of learning)

Even the absence of a raw food diet in childhood is no excuse in that regard:

young birds have been experimentally reared in devices that prevent them from moving their wings until they reached the age at which their cohorts were flying. These birds flew immediately and normally when released, showing that their improvement resulted from neuromuscular maturation and not true learning.

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

[Iguana]

Iguana: Don’t you restrict yourself, for example, usually to two meals a day? Why do you do that?

Hanna, I used the word « restrictive » for lack of a more suited word. By “restrictive” I meant for example a diet with cooked food but excluding cheese or wine or whatever.

What I tried to mean is that the “instincto nutrition” is different of all other diets in this regard as you can eat whatever raw stuff (as much as possible wild and paleo), even if it’s not usually considered as “food”. Of course it is restrictive anyway since dairy, wheat and all processed foods are excluded.  Words taken in their strict, exact sense are often not sufficient to express what we would like to say. Moreover, words often have more than one meaning. The word “diet” itself may be confusing.

Yes, I found out that having an unlimited number of meals per day with a single food per meal as suggested by “Dom” Guyaux (it’s only a slightly different variant of the same instinctive nutrition) doesn’t work well for me. I then tend to eat night and day and this proved to be too much. Our digestive system has to rest several hours per day, and, apparently works in reverse in these hours to expel toxins. “Dom” also recognizes that and he advices no to eat before 10 am and not at night. His  way seems to mimic more closely the natural conditions, but in our civilized work, it’s difficult to apply it properly. Most people have a work schedule, with a break at noon, so it’s practical to have a so called “lunch” at this time, and a “dinner” in the evening after work.

In natural conditions, we wouldn’t be able to eat always, not as often as we would. There would be periods in which no food is available.  Thus, with only  two meals per day, we artificially tend to simulate that, at least to some extend. If I have only one meal per day, in the evening, something I can exceptionally do if I’m very busy and physically active, then I eat a lot at that meal and it doesn’t suit me very well.         

Why the instincto guideline to eat preferably „proteins“ instead of sugars/fruit at dinner?

I don’t really know and sometimes I do the contrary. One drawback of eating fruits in the evening is they contain a lot of water and then you have to get up during the night to urinate.

Most eating habits have their rules or at least their regularities and, therefore, their restrictions. Restrictions will translate into habits over time and when they are a habit, intuition (for example, a feeling of hunger or thoughts about eating at your usual mealtime) or alliesthetic signals (for example, rapidly occurring alliesthetic stops with fruit if you are not used to eat much fruit) may support these habits. I’m "afraid" alliesthetic signals won’t by themselves lead us to a balanced composition of our diet.

Yes, and I don’t think anyone ever pretended that. The pressure of the environmental conditions are of course necessary. Unfortunately, we don’t live in ideal, original conditions and thus we have to find ways to compensate for the conditions imposed by our artificial, modern way of life, or else return to live in a wild unspoiled environment.   

BTW, a true instinct shouldn`t work only with smart persons or „proper training“.Even the absence of a raw food diet in childhood is no excuse in that regard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

Yes again. The alimentary instinct has been proved to work fine with babies. It works in everyone of us, even to some extend with cooked foods, although it works ideally with a diet of unprocessed raw paleo foods.

But using our alimentary instinct is not enough, especially in the common modern conditions. Even young animals are trained by their parents or elders of the group. Orang-outans born in captivity lack the proper training to live in the wild, but it doesn’t imply that their instinct doesn’t work properly. We have been trained in an way opposite to the normal, natural way; this unsuitable training has to be erased and preferably replaced with a training more like it would have been in original paleo conditions.

Again, no one ever pretended that the instinctive regulation suffices alone to have a proper nutritional balance. Instincts are constantly at work in everyone, but the names “instincto”, “instinctive nutrition” or “instinctotherapy” don’t mean that this practice exclusively relies on our alimentary instinct.

Do my replies make sense?   

[GCB]

Nicole would probably have died also without chemotherapy, insofar as she would have continued her regular meat overload. She accepted chemotherapy because her sister is a MD who insisted until Nicole agreed to that.  As everyone is free to act, I did not insist to deter her. It’s probably because her body was under such a big overload of keratins that her lungs were keratinized under the effect of bleomycin at such a speed. The doctors were surprised. Personally I  did not exercise pressure on Nicole to do this or that: I simply advised her to have surgery right away, but she refused by preferring prayers and Hamer’s method. Then I recommended her to drop the meat, or at least to limit it as was done previously (if we had to hunt we wouldn’t have it available every day), but then I stumbled upon an unshakable resistance and it was only 3 weeks before her death that she agreed to avoid meat.

The question of Nicole’s fondness for meat may be related to the lost of her father at 13 years old: he educated her throughout her childhood to force herself to gulp down beefsteaks, which she found awkward, and he constantly brainwashed her that meat consumption would avoid her having "goat legs "— in his own words. There was therefore a strong feeling of her father lost love which she projected on meat, which remained her father’s symbol. It was only at the very end that she took a step back from this belief and ceased her important consumption of red meat. Previously, she thought than meat would help cure her cancer, which easily led to an overload. And as the flavor of domesticated animals’ meat gives only week stop signals, she was able to eat quantities having nothing to do with a proper instinctive balance.

But I believe that the core of the problem is that the total lack of a food class (such as insects) leads the body to more easily accept substitutes. Meat consumed regularly is likely an instinctive workaround for the lack of insects, amplified by the absence of accurate instinctive repulsion with domestic meat. A substitute may well have harmful long-term effects, particularly at immune level, not only at the banal level of balance between the contributions of organs and muscle.

If I try to expand our food range to insects, it shows that I take into account the external environment, and not just the internal signals of the body. Without insects, if they play an important role in our human food range as they do for primates, which is likely, it is not surprising that we automatically tend to compensate with too much meat. Cultural resistance to insect consumption can also distort things. But this does not mean that body signals aren’t critical to achieve adequate nutritional balance.

For my part, I trust most of all the experience : the everyday experience of our alimentary instinct (changes in olfactory, gustatory and proprioceptive variations) and of the extremely precise balancing (proved by the absence of inflammatory and infectious trends) obtained upon training that I’ve always recommended, demonstrate that this instinct works perfectly. Those who claim otherwise are just usually people who have not experienced the instinctotherapy, or have imagined that an optimal alimentary balance would be reached overnight with an insufficient food choice, or without the necessary training. This is the case of Alphagruis, who never followed one of my seminars and even declined to listen to my advices when suffering from certain disorders, which I 'm sure would have quickly resolved with a correct balancing.

I've also always said, which he pretends to be unaware of, that it is necessary to differentiate:

- the case of an emergency therapy, which should act on the short-term and for which it is advantageous to have the widest possible choice in view to find quickly the specific nutrients or herbal therapeutic useful compounds (= instinctotherapy),
- and the long-term practice, where alternating foods avoids saturations and renews both the pleasure and food adequacy (= instinctonutrition).

The practical problem of supply usually tends to solve the issue, except for those who work in an organic fruit and vegetables wholesale store or are willing to spend a lot of money on food...

Now, why didn't I see earlier than meat of vertebrate would be unable to compensate for the absence of insects, which by contrast are present in the daily menus of virtually all primates? This is because the problems appear only on the very long term (10 years, 20 years...). These effects may occur earlier in people with serious diseases, but it is difficult to connect a failure or relapse in connection with the meat matter. It is indeed tempting to think that the case was simply too advanced to allow a natural process to restore normal health, and nothing induces to look any further. Plus, the idea of eating insects or questioning the Goddess Meat triggers a strong resistance.

At best, I can only advise those who have only a few years of experience in a raw paleo diet to take account of comments made by veterans: during 50 years of regular observations, not only on oneself, but on a large number of people, one inevitably acquires more data than in a few years’ application of an ideology on a single person. And for those who still do not understand: the “instincto” is not an ideology, and not even a dietetic. It is basically an experiment to inquire at what extent the human metabolism and the operation of the senses are still suitable for raw unprocessed pre-Neolithic foods or nutrition as practiced by primates, in order to at least partially explain civilization's diseases by specific traditional diet mistakes.

I always presented it as such, and those who claim that I would have made it a panacea, like so many gurus inventors of miraculous fad diets, are either misinformed or dishonest.

Excuse me for no longer contributing to this forum, but my previous interventions here sparked off such a large influx of questions and even hostility that it took me too much time to answer everyone. Sorry about that.

GCB   

[TylerDurden]

I do not view drying and freezing as ideal processes but sometimes they have to be used in order to prolong the usability of a particular food.

No idea re Hadza's daily consumption as anyway they would have encountered different access to their food depending on weather activity etc. etc.

A raw food with lots of antinutrients is just as bad as a cooked food with lots of heat-created toxins. Both are not dersigned to be eaten.

[eveheart]

If I try to expand our food range to insects, it shows that I take into account the external environment, and not just the internal signals of the body. Without insects, if they play an important role in our human food range as they do for primates, which is likely, it is not surprising that we automatically tend to compensate with too much meat. Cultural resistance to insect consumption can also distort things. But this does not mean that body signals aren’t critical to achieve adequate nutritional balance.

After reading and re-reading your post, I spent quite some time imagining what insect consumption would look like for modern humans - for me. I've seen movies of African tribes drumming on the earth above ant colonies until the ants surface and get caught and eaten. In my climate, I'm sure that termites are plentiful enough to eat if I farmed them - the neighbors might not like me digging them out of their houses' timbers.

What would insect hunting and gathering look like to some of us on this forum?

[van]

Nicole would probably have died also without chemotherapy, insofar as she would have continued her regular meat overload. She accepted chemotherapy because her sister is a MD who insisted until Nicole agreed to that.  As everyone is free to act, I did not insist to deter her. It’s probably because her body was under such a big overload of keratins that her lungs were keratinized under the effect of bleomycin at such a speed. The doctors were surprised. Personally I  did not exercise pressure on Nicole to do this or that: I simply advised her to have surgery right away, but she refused by preferring prayers and Hamer’s method. Then I recommended her to drop the meat, or at least to limit it as was done previously (if we had to hunt we wouldn’t have it available every day), but then I stumbled upon an unshakable resistance and it was only 3 weeks before her death that she agreed to avoid meat.

The question of Nicole’s fondness for meat may be related to the lost of her father at 13 years old: he educated her throughout her childhood to force herself to gulp down beefsteaks, which she found awkward, and he constantly brainwashed her that meat consumption would avoid her having "goat legs "— in his own words. There was therefore a strong feeling of her father lost love which she projected on meat, which remained her father’s symbol. It was only at the very end that she took a step back from this belief and ceased her important consumption of red meat. Previously, she thought than meat would help cure her cancer, which easily led to an overload. And as the flavor of domesticated animals’ meat gives only week stop signals, she was able to eat quantities having nothing to do with a proper instinctive balance.

But I believe that the core of the problem is that the total lack of a food class (such as insects) leads the body to more easily accept substitutes. Meat consumed regularly is likely an instinctive workaround for the lack of insects, amplified by the absence of accurate instinctive repulsion with domestic meat. A substitute may well have harmful long-term effects, particularly at immune level, not only at the banal level of balance between the contributions of organs and muscle.

If I try to expand our food range to insects, it shows that I take into account the external environment, and not just the internal signals of the body. Without insects, if they play an important role in our human food range as they do for primates, which is likely, it is not surprising that we automatically tend to compensate with too much meat. Cultural resistance to insect consumption can also distort things. But this does not mean that body signals aren’t critical to achieve adequate nutritional balance.

For my part, I trust most of all the experience : the everyday experience of our alimentary instinct (changes in olfactory, gustatory and proprioceptive variations) and of the extremely precise balancing (proved by the absence of inflammatory and infectious trend) obtained upon training that I’ve always recommended, demonstrate that this instinct works perfectly. Those who claim otherwise are just usually people who have not experienced the instinctotherapy, or have imagined that an optimal alimentary balance would be reached overnight with an insufficient food choice, or without the necessary training. This is the case of Alphagruis, who never followed one of my seminars and even declined to listen to my advices when suffering from certain disorders, which I 'm sure would have quickly resolved with a correct balancing.

I've also always said, which he pretends to be unaware of, that it is necessary to differentiate:

- the case of an emergency therapy, which should act on the short-term and for which it is advantageous to have the widest possible choice in view to find quickly the specific nutrients or herbal therapeutic useful compounds (= instinctotherapy),
- and the long-term practice, where alternating foods avoids saturations and renews both the pleasure and food adequacy (= instinctonutrition).

The practical problem of supply usually tends to solves the issue, except for those who work in an organic fruit and vegetables wholesale store or are willing to spend a lot of money on food...

Now, why did I not see earlier than meat of vertebrate would be unable to compensate for the absence of insects, which by contrast are present in the daily menus of virtually all primates? This is because the problems appear only on the very long term (10 years, 20 years...). These effects may occur earlier in people with serious diseases, but it is difficult to connect a failure or relapse in connection with the meat matter. It is indeed tempting to think that the case was simply too advanced to allow a natural processes to restore normal health, and nothing induces to look any further. Plus, the idea of eating insects or questioning the Goddess Meat triggers a strong resistance.

At best, I can only advise those who have only a few years of experience in a raw paleo diet to take account of comments made by veterans: during 50 years of regular observations, not only on oneself, but on a large number of people, one inevitably acquires more data than in a few years’ application of an ideology on a single person. And for those who still do not understand: the “instincto” is not an ideology, and not even a dietetic. It is basically an experiment to inquire at what extent the human metabolism and the operation of the senses are still suitable for raw unprocessed pre-Neolithic foods or nutrition as practiced by primates, in order to at least partially explain civilization disease by specific traditional diet mistakes.

I always presented it as such, and those who claim that I would have made it a panacea, like so many gurus inventors of miraculous fad diets, are either misinformed or dishonest.

Excuse me for no longer contributing to this forum, but my previous interventions here sparked off such a large influx of questions and even hostility that it took me too much time to answer everyone. Sorry about that.

GCB   

  GCB,  I've mentioned this to Iguana a couple of times, and now appreciative that I can mention it to you.   I think you have for some reason not taken into account the amount of meat eaten at one sitting,, as opposed to how frequently meat is eaten.  There is much literature regarding how much protein the body can actually utilize for maintenance and repair from any one meal, the rest being turned into glucose with toxic by products...   With your reliance or insistence on instinctive stop, I believe you are overlooking what others now know of just how toxic any protein is when eaten to excess.  I'm saying this bluntly to more readily get to the point.    Early man wasn't designed or programmed to live long lives, but long enough to propagate and pass along tribal skills.  I think it's our fallacy to want to believe that their diet and the amounts would be optimal for us today with our complex lives, and with the science we know today, for instance the toxicity of excess protein.   When early man would have come across a carcass of a large vertebrate, there would be no reason he would have said to himself,  Gee I better not eat too much, for that isn't healthy.   No, he would have gorged himself like hungry dogs because he wouldn't have known when the next meal would come.  So for years and years this was how they ate.  Seems obvious to me, but for anyone practicing instinctive nutrition, this one concept seems inconceivable and almost blasphemous.    If Nicole, and I visited Montrame five times over five years of which I spent as much time as I could with her, would have eaten smaller meals of protein, especially of meat, I doubt very seriously she would have created that specific problem due to over consumption of protein.   There are just too many peoples around the world including the american plains indians or the inuit who didn't perish with cancer,   to blame it on meat by itself.    I don't know if you've looked at other's studies on excess protein consumption or not, Iguana doesn't seem to be willing to, but it may prove fruitful for you to do so. 
    I also witnessed over and over at Montrame a limited fat intake.  Meat eaten rarely included large pieces of fat... Which is another whole topic of discussion,, but as related to eating insects, I agree insects are a whole food, with balanced amounts of protein, fat, minerals and some carbs.    A much more balanced form or complete food than just eating a large piece of meat off a cutting board as served at Montrame.  (I'm suggesting here that never did I see fatty meat, marrow bones, back fat, brain, eye balls, tongue, spine, testicles, heart, pancreas, stomach, blood  etc...  being offered.) 

  I hope you understand my points here.  If there's confusion I'd be happy to clarify. 

[Hanna]

I then tend to eat night and day and this proved to be too much.

But doesn’t that mean that alliesthetic stops don’t protect you from eating too much (and from impairing your physiological balance), even if you confine yourself to raw, unmixed etc. foods?

Part of the trouble might be the unclear definition of the term „instinct“.
Sorry, German:

Instinkt – wörtlich: Naturtrieb – bezeichnet meist die unbekannten, inneren Grundlagen („Antriebe“) des vom Beobachter wahrnehmbaren Verhaltens eines Tieres. Diese Bezeichnung wurde in der Verhaltensforschung und der Psychologie jedoch nie eindeutig definiert, sondern von unterschiedlichen Autoren jeweils unterschiedlich verwendet. (…)
Heute vermeiden Psychologie und Verhaltensbiologie weitgehend die Bezeichnung Instinkt und ersetzen ihn zum Beispiel durch angeborenes Verhalten.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinkt

I’ll avoid the term (and concept of) instinct in future, or at least try to do so, in order to avoid misconceptions such as learning processes not being necessary to be able to balance one’s diet.

[Projectile Vomit]

Thanks for your post GCB. I wonder how much the added value of eating insects is due to the fact that they're entire animals, whereas eating meat is only one part of an animal and leaves out nutrients in other parts like bones, connective tissues, skin and organs? I practice nose-to-tail eating, and most of the animal foods I eat are organs and broths made from bone, skin, tendons and ligaments. I feel like nose-to-tail eating gives a more balanced array of nutrients, whereas eating just muscle meat might lead to excesses or deficiencies of certain amino acids or other things. Eating insects would be comparable to nose-to-tail eating, since insects are small enough that when we eat them we are eating not just their muscle tissue but also all of their organs, nervous tissue and connective tissue.

[Iguana]

But doesn’t that mean that alliesthetic stops don’t protect you from eating too much (and from impairing your physiological balance), even if you confine yourself to raw, unmixed etc. foods?

I didn’t specially mean too much food, but rather too long digestive duration per day. But it’s clear that we can eat too much as well for at least 3 reasons:

   - cultivated fruits and meats from domesticated animals, which remain tasty too long;
   - many different food available in our fridges and various storages;
   - compensation of boredom, loneliness and frustrations in life by needlessly eating too many different foods in a meal, or too many meals per day.

In principle, we can’t eat too much of a single wild food, and in the wild we wouldn’t often find several different foodstuffs around the same place during a short time. We would usually have to walk over long distances between the discovery of two edible products.

At home, the situation is completely different and artificial, a broad range of various food being constantly and directly accessible without any effort. We may feel that we’ve had enough of one foodstuff, but it doesn’t prevent us to immediately eat something else up to another instinctive stop, than again something else and so on ad infinitum — or rather until we get an indigestion. That’s why it’s essential to limit the number of different foods we eat in a meal, and even in a day.

What “Dom” (Dominique Guyaux) has suggested is to have only one food per meal but an almost unlimited number of meals per day. It shifts the problem, but doesn’t resolve it.