Greetings!
So, I became aware of the "caveman diet" in the latter half of my ten-year stint as a vegetarian. When I finally acknowledged, following those ten years of stubbornness, that vegetarianism wasn't doing me a whole hell of a lot of good, my curiosity was piqued by the idea of eating like our pre-agriculturist ancestors. I found my way to Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint" and Nora Gedgaudas' "Primal Body, Primal Mind." After reading all those wonderful healing stories, I was certain I had found the silver bullet for perfect health, after having tried to acquire it since I was 18, when I stopped eating meat. There were definitely small successes in health after adding meat back into my diet, but my slight, underweight frame didn't transform as much I had expected or hoped, nor did my hair-trigger mood-swings.
Since first coming to this in early 2010, I have been following some half-baked amalgamation of Sisson's spin on paleo and the WAPF, with a little of Kurt Harris' influence. Having struggled through intense cravings for foods that I know were probably doing me not much good, along with not getting much in the way of those miraculous results I've seen from numerous other accounts, I've become rather disillusioned. I eat the best that I can, tweaking things from time to time, knowing not to expect much in the way of progress. Though I dislike the word, I'm definitely a "foodie" and at one point, I think I just settled on the notion of eating all the foods I liked but stressing the highest quality and wisest preparations a la WAPF, yet I still can't let go of the idea of finding perfect health rather than settling for "good enough." Plus, I know some of these foods my likely damaged gut can't handle regardless of how thoughtfully prepared they are. I just finished "The Perfect Health Diet" by Paul and Shou-Ching Shih Jaminet, and while I gained a lot of new insights and knowledge, it doesn't stray too much from what I have tried in the past, other than the fact that they stress the importance of certain single-nutrient supplements for insurance and because of widespread deficiencies of said nutrients. I'm wary of such a strong, indefinite reliance on supplements, however, which I'm sure most here would agree with. The one thing I haven't tried, though, in all my questing, is raw animal foods. I have experience with raw eggs, milk, and rare steak and fish, but these were in addition to a mostly cooked diet. Raw was never my main focus, other than an extremely short, half-assed attempt at raw veganism in my early vegetarian days (I honestly don't know how people can do that long-term without feeling famished). Anyway, I'm opening myself up to the idea of eating all or mostly raw. I've dipped my toes in so to speak, but haven't taken the full plunge just yet. I have a grass-fed lamb roast currently thawing out as I type. I intend to cut off the fattiest portion of it and experiment. Hopefully, it will be a long-awaited revelation and resolution.