Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Welcoming Committee => Topic started by: whitebox84 on November 19, 2009, 02:56:54 am
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I'm in Dubai and it's almost impossible right now to find any grass-fed meat. The main issue here is that the climate is such that we import everything. And there is pretty much very low demand for anything organic, free-range, etc. Hopefully this will change in the next year (I've heard some extra shops are opening of this sort). What do I do until then? Stick with raw fish until better comes around? Do other people here eat solely raw fish?
BTW, as I started including steady raw fish into my otherwise raw vegan diet, my bowel movements went from once a day to 2-3 times. Pretty encouraging but why do you think this is occurring?
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-X so far i know that Eskimos only eat raw fish most of the year...
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Call supermarkets and ask if they carry New Zealand lamb, it's grass fed. NZ lamb is sold around the world.
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You're in a difficult position. IMO, I once did a 100% raw seafood diet and a 90% raw seafood 10% raw vegetables(all foods wildcaught or organic) but neither experiment worked for me. I simply seemed to deteriorate to some extent, despite making sure in either case that I was eating a lot of raw, very fatty fish. Conversely, my feeling of well-being is even better if I regularly include at least 20% of my diet(40% max) in the form of raw, wild seafood.
Presumably you do have some other options. What about camel-flesh? Of course, grass isn't likely in such an area, I suppose so only grainfed(?) camel-flesh might be available - in which case, you could supplement with the Blue Ice cod liver oil product(or preferably Mercola's Krill Oil as it's got even higher levels of omega-3s per gram). Another obvious alternative presents itself:- AFAIK, Dubai is the main connection-point for travellers to Iran from the Middle-East so that it should be a small matter to just hop on a plane once every fortnight/4 weeks to the nearest Iranian town/port across the Persian Gulf and search around for sources of raw, grassfed or wild meats over there - as long as you have a large enough freezer, things should be fine.
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BTW, as I started including steady raw fish into my otherwise raw vegan diet, my bowel movements went from once a day to 2-3 times. Pretty encouraging but why do you think this is occurring?
Bowel movements do seem to change on this diet. It seems to depend on the person, what kind of raw primal diet they are eating, how much water, etc.
Many here have been constipated and raw paleo corrected it - that includes me. So perhaps you are becoming extra-not-constipated. :) I was eating low-fat, but even a high-fat vegan diet does not contain the fats that are best for body function - "fats" are not all the same. So even if you were eating high-fat vegan, this will be a change for your body.
Obviously you don't want to poop undigested food (green chyme) or have diarrhea, so if that is happening then you are having a problem.
Believe it or not, there is a chart of poop here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_feces#Bristol_Stool_Chart). Bless their hearts. I was constipated all my life and never knew it. I would have panicked at a normal bowel movement!
There is also some good info in our archives here about bowel movements.
Others will be able to help you too, this has been discussed several times.
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I'm in Dubai and it's almost impossible right now to find any grass-fed meat. The main issue here is that the climate is such that we import everything. And there is pretty much very low demand for anything organic, free-range, etc. Hopefully this will change in the next year (I've heard some extra shops are opening of this sort). What do I do until then? Stick with raw fish until better comes around? Do other people here eat solely raw fish?
What someone else said about NZ lamb, that should be available. I've even gotten it in WFM Union Sq NY, excellent quality not frozen.
I think everyone's needs are different from the next person, and can change even in that person. As far as meats on my diet (primal diet), in the beginning coming from decades vegan, I was enjoying mostly fish, a wide variety of types. Presently I don't even feel like touching fish for the most part, and when I eat a meat based meal I prefer land-based animal.
You should be fine with fish as your only meat. It's not forever anyway, I'm sure you'll source other meats eventually.
I was thinking about the extreme heat in Dubai. I don't know about you, but for me personally sweet foods generally make it harder for me to tolerate hot weather, while (raw) animal even help me tolerate very hot weather better. One of the fats that works best for me is cultured raw grass grazed butter, even if it has been frozen. I don't know if you can get it there. Is it particularly fatty type fishes you're getting? I find frozen bison back/hide fat to work well too. I guess camels have nice fat in their humps.
BTW, as I started including steady raw fish into my otherwise raw vegan diet, my bowel movements went from once a day to 2-3 times. Pretty encouraging but why do you think this is occurring?
On raw vegan Living Food LifestyleTM, my food went out pretty much the way it went in. On semicooked paleo I guess it was like everyone else. On fruit alone for weeks it varied from somewhat normal to very constipated. On 'healthy' vegan cooked food I went from pretty good to the worst stool you couldn't even imagine. On all raw RVAF my stools are the best. I think the stools are better because the colon muscles are working better.
Can you get pasture grazed eggs over there? What about unheated honey? What kind of fruits are you eating? What kind of fresh vegetables are available over there. I read all the forums. Are your berries frozen? Organic?
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I'll check on the NZ lamb and camel. Thanks guys.
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Hmm, my own experience showed that the more raw animal food I ate in a hot climate, the hotter I actually felt and the more I sweated. Raw zero carb was the most extreme example of this sort of thing.
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I found NZ lamb at the local grocery store. It's all of the leg variety. They have Australian as well...
Would I do well to eat a lot of NZ leg lamb?
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Hmm, my own experience showed that the more raw animal food I ate in a hot climate, the hotter I actually felt and the more I sweated. Raw zero carb was the most extreme example of this sort of thing.
My experience is the opposite.
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I found NZ lamb at the local grocery store. It's all of the leg variety. They have Australian as well...
Would I do well to eat a lot of NZ leg lamb?
Get the lamb, it's grain finished but they live good lives free range until a few months before they are slaughtered, don't get too caught up in details. It's million times better than SAD and there's plenty of fat on it.
I've eaten the same lamb you get over there, tastes great and never been sick from it.
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I was going to mention that, AFAIK, the commercially available New Zealand lamb isn't wholly grass-fed. It's certainly grain finished which does impact the omega 3/6 ratio of the meat more than one might expect. But, I'd agree with Andrew's comments -
don't get too caught up in details. It's million times better than SAD
It may still be worth supplementing with Blue Ice cod liver oil if available to help with the grain-fed aspect.
Alternatively, if circumstances allow, I'd seriously consider moving to a country where healthy grass-raised animals are available. Of course, this may involve detrimental tax consequences! ;)
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How do you know NZ lamb is grain finished? All the articles i've read on NZ lamb didn't mention that.
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It's quite a big piece of meat. By buying that and chewing on it in pieces will be a rather bold move for me. I'm rather hesitant.
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I read about the grain feeding of NZ lamb when I was struggling to find grass-fed meat myself and was considering it as a source. I will try to dig out a source of this information. As Andrew said, it is primarily grass-fed but I think the New Zealand food export industry strongly promotes it's meat & dairy produce across the world by relying on a perceived 'image' of happy cows eating nothing but lush green pasture. A certain degree of this is conjured in people's imaginations. It's called marketing.
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Whitebox - Are you proposing to literally tear chunks off of this large piece of meat with your bare teeth?! If you're new to consumption of raw meat, may I suggest eating it 'carpaccio' style or freshly ground using a home mincer. It's important, psychologically at least, that you make it a palatable experience rather than a reluctant exertion.
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Oh, no. I was thinking of putting the whole thing in a bug tupperware and from day to day cutting off a piece and eating that. Good idea regarding the mincer.
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I've never bought a whole leg of lamb, but this is the best way I can imagine to do it:
Have the butcher saw through the bone into one or two inche slices.
Get a sharp knife and cut the meat (which will be fibrous due to its location).
Put the meat in glass jars in the fridge.
Let the bone pieces sit out about an hour.
Push the marrow out of the bone segments and put them in a glass jar in the fridge.
Either dispose of the bones, give them to dogs or freeze them for long boiled nourishing stock.
I think this would make best use of the leg.
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It's quite a big piece of meat. By buying that and chewing on it in pieces will be a rather bold move for me. I'm rather hesitant.
Raw meat protein gives energy. You might want to eat your first meat meals midday rather than evenings. You can make it into habra naya or something else interesting to start. Also, I do better if I eat plain (raw) fat first to satiety, then only eat a little meat. You can blend the fat to make sauces too. Aajonus has his book Recipe For Living Without Disease available to read online for ways to prepare the food. This book may help you a lot, especially since it's faster to receive it than ordering the physical book from another continent. It may be published in Thai though too and shipped from Thailand, IDK but I doubt you speak Thai. Even AV has distaste for meat sometimes, so recipes can come in handy when you'd prefer something more appetizing, or that's what other people do. I pretty much eat plain, oftentimes with a little unheated honey on it to keep healthier internal microorganism balance.
How do you know NZ lamb is grain finished? All the articles i've read on NZ lamb didn't mention that.
I read about the grain feeding of NZ lamb when I was struggling to find grass-fed meat myself and was considering it as a source. I will try to dig out a source of this information. As Andrew said, it is primarily grass-fed but
They grass graze them because that is right. They grainfeed in the end because it's unnatural for man to kill them in their prime of life. We kill them in their prime; because we (the typical commercial producers) want to get their lives over with fast; because we're not intouch with them or ourselves. Paleo man would be more likely to eat the old ones that have grown healthy fat layers over many years of life lived. We (humans these days) try unconsiously to mimmick that by fattening with grain. The marbelization from grainfeeding makes the meat juicier for cooking, something totally unnecessary for us here on this forum IMO.
edit: (my browser crashed because malicious add-on?) eating grain might make sense for some animals. i read cows have a hard time converting fresh grass carotene into vitamin A in their bodies, and may get "carotene poisoning" similar to the way some people have from eating too many fresh greens. I think sheep would not get this problem and would do better on greens, like goats do.
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They grainfeed in the end because it's unnatural for man to kill them in their prime of life. We kill them in their prime; because we (the typical commercial producers) want to get their lives over with fast
A relevant point eloquently made RawZi.
Modern man grain feeds primarily for reasons of greed and financial gain. An optimistic perspective may also consider the need to provide affordable meat for a growing population. Livestock production, like any other business, is all about turnover for the commercial producers and, it appears, that they use whatever means are available for producing 'finished' (ie fattened) meat. The disastrous consequences of these practices are only now becoming evident - it's effect on the welfare and short lives of the animals, the ecological impact in terms of land use, deforestation and water resources for feed production, the degenerative health of the 'predators' of these animals etc. Naturally reared, grass-fed meat provides a great improvement if not a solution to the correct feeding of man's growing populace.
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A relevant point eloquently made RawZi.
Modern man grain feeds primarily for reasons of greed and financial gain. An optimistic perspective may also consider the need to provide affordable meat for a growing population. Livestock production, like any other business, is all about turnover for the commercial producers and, it appears, that they use whatever means are available for producing 'finished' (ie fattened) meat. The disastrous consequences of these practices are only now becoming evident - it's effect on the welfare and short lives of the animals, the ecological impact in terms of land use, deforestation and water resources for feed production, the degenerative health of the 'predators' of these animals etc. Naturally reared, grass-fed meat provides a great improvement if not a solution to the correct feeding of man's growing populace.
Grain feeding has IMO also absolutely no future in terms of energy input. One needs approximately one barrel of oil to fatten one animal (beef). Grain-fed meat is essentially oil. Grass-fed meat is essentially solar energy.
Grain feeding is definitely unsustainable.
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Grain feeding has IMO also absolutely no future in terms of energy input. One needs approximately one barrel of oil to fatten one animal (beef). Grain-fed meat is essentially oil. Grass-fed meat is essentially solar energy.
Grain feeding is definitely unsustainable.
My sentiments precisely alphagruis. With continuation and expansion of mass grain-feeding there can be no future. I would add to your comments, however, that grass-fed meat does of course require it's own input of resources and can only be described as an improvement rather than a solution for what is essentially an unsupportable population, as I mentioned. The only solution is a drastic reduction in global population IMO. But, I don't think we need to concern ourselves with developing strategies for achieving this. Lovelock's Gaia theory will see to it!
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michael, i definitely agree with everything you just said minus the last two sentences. while it's true that the Earth will probably regulate human population at some point in the future, but i think it's dangerous to suggest that we should not concern ourselves with finding a way to reduce our population sooner. i won't get in to my personal views on how we should go about this, but i just wanted to point that out. leaving it up to 'nature' just tells people to ignore the problem at hand.
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Michael
I agree heartedly and I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one to think this way. So many people become angry and hostile when one even just mentions this "hot" issue.
yon yonson
I agree that it would certainly have been suitable to find a way to control our own biomass. Yet, no species has ever successfully done something like that, voluntarily. The regulation usually takes place by a shortage in food or predators or other ways found by Nature (or Gaia).
Admittedly we are a very "special" species with a big brain. However, IMO it's unfortunately too late yet and at any rate it's quite uncertain that we ever had the capabilities to succeed.
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Alphagruis, although in a minority I'm glad to say that we're not the only ones to think this way. I was discussing the same topic last year with one of my university lecturers who has a doctorate in biological sciences. I'm studying biosciences at the University of East Anglia (as a mature student!) which is one of, if not THE, leading university in the world in environmental sciences. She has the same view.
Of course, it is a contentious issue yon and your concerns are greatly shared. Many suspect world governments are already doing much to reduce population via methods of control with some conspiracists expanding those thoughts even further! I have to agree with alphagruis. Despite the media clamour and the constant focus on these matters in the media it's likely already too late. The wonderful living, breathing organism called Gaia will self-regulate as it always has done.
Incidentally, I would be interested to hear your personal views on how we should go about reducing population to sustainable levels.
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how we should go about reducing population to sustainable levels.
Those who are able to do so could stop having children.
I'd also like to know yon yonson's ideas? I've set myself up on this topic several times now and have escaped assassination so far :)
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ok. the only way to drastically reduce population, in my opinion, is to dismantle the infrastructure of civilization. without oil supply, electricity, internet, industrial food supply, water supply, etc, people will die. i know that sounds harsh to some people, but i don't think it's effective to just say 'oh, well we'll just stop having as many kids.' that method would take far too long and be much more difficult to implement. i see civilization as inherently unsustainable, so it will end inevitably. the longer we take to end it, the more people will die. so like i said, people will die. i might die, you might die, i don't know, but lots of people will die. but an appropriate number of people will survive based on how many people their landbase can naturally support without the aid of civilization. then earth can return to a more balanced state. anyways, those are my beliefs in a nut shell.
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None of you potential megalomaniacs will need to worry about taking up the torch on how to solve the issue. Chris Martenson's videos paints a fairly clear picture on how the next 20 years will likely unfold.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/
Gaia Theory et al, it's pretty much common sense at this point.
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I don't think yon yonson is "harsh." What's happening now is harsh. What's happening now is torture and murder.
I also agree that there will be horrific troubles to come regardless, simply because the system is too unbalanced. (I'll be interested to watch that video in the coming days, thanks for posting it.)
However, if we do survive and hope to continue to live here - ever - we must learn to do so with greater restraint.
Voluntarily curtailing reproduction cuts the "carbon footprint" of each individual immediately and exponentially and without killing or causing suffering.
People who always want more of something are addicted to it. We are addicted to the flourishing aspect of life.
Perhaps my point of view is the "hospice theory of humanity" - how to die off more gracefully :) However, it would be interesting to do some calculations on just what would happen if those who had the means to satisfy themselves did so and thus relinquished their need for children, then stepped out of the way to allow flow in the socioeconomic system. Perhaps a new system would emerge in keeping with the Georgia Guidestones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones).
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None of you potential megalomaniacs will need to worry about taking up the torch on how to solve the issue. Chris Martenson's videos paints a fairly clear picture on how the next 20 years will likely unfold.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/
Gaia Theory et al, it's pretty much common sense at this point.
haha, a 'potential megalomaniac'. well if that's what you label me then fine. i watched the first couple of those videos and enjoyed his explanation of exponential growth. but then he started talking about putting surpluses into prosperity instead of growth and i got a little lost. prosperity (as he defined it) is growth. it's the growth of materials and services and scientific knowledge. these are not things i consider sustainable.
as for the gaia theory, i get it. i believe it to be true, but how does that rule out the need for humanity to overthrow civilization and it's inherent unsustainability? wouldn't we just be acting as agents of the theory?
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My problem with the Gaia theory is that it doesn't take into account the phenomenon of individual human consciousness (and I did read the book). The "expanded ego" that is touted as ethics is lofty nonsense IMO.
Overthrowing civilization is a conscious choice that goes against natural survival instincts. That could be acting "in the service of Gaia" but not as a part of Gaia. Here's that split again, ;) - are we or are not part of Gaia?
I think we're both, but not yet able to reconcile that.
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To clarify: abstract thought is not part of Gaia.
We are so comfortable with abstraction we don't even notice it. Sometimes we act almost entirely within abstraction - this forum is one example.
So getting rid of "civilization" would be getting rid of abstraction (it all started with Plato at the "dawn of Western civilization," incidentally)
By abstraction I do not mean ideas, representations, etc about "real" things. Pantheistic/primitive people were not *primarily* abstract thinkers. Their gods are representations of real things.
I think there needs to be an integration between the abstract capacity of the mind and the reality of the physical.
Though ending civilization seems appealing, I don't know how that could actually be accomplished without common scenarios of an exclusively abstract agent - an antichrist, or impersonal agent like "the Nazis," for example - and that doesn't seem likely to create psychologically healthy survivors.
Much food for thought in this thread
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Well, yon yonson, it wouldn't do us very good to discuss a book only one of us has fully read and the other is only a couple centimeters steeped in, would it? I've watched the entire series twice and I still need to go for another few rounds to digest it properly. It sounds like you need to watch the growth versus prosperity one again. l)
When you find yourself at the extreme end of an exponential cycle in almost every type of economic, energy and environmental model which sustains us and our way of life, you can see that we're headed for a cliff. Human life will go on, certainly to some extent or another. However, when we do fall off it, discretionary energy will no longer exist or be available for societal complications like luxuries or much non-survival hobbies which are trivial in the face of the work you need to get done each day to contribute to your community. The communities which exist will fall in line with primitive systems a la ecosystem villages around the world.
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you're right. i definitely need to watch the rest of those but havent had time
When you find yourself at the extreme end of an exponential cycle in almost every type of economic, energy and environmental model which sustains us and our way of life, you can see that we're headed for a cliff. Human life will go on, certainly to some extent or another. However, when we do fall off it, discretionary energy will no longer exist or be available for societal complications like luxuries or much non-survival hobbies which are trivial in the face of the work you need to get done each day to contribute to your community. The communities which exist will fall in line with primitive systems a la ecosystem villages around the world.
i hope you're right. im just not as optimistic. how do you know that we won't pollute the earth beyond repair before this exponential cycle ends? i'd like to be more sure about it all and just end the global civilization now. then there's no having to hope that this exponential cycle will save us all. to each his own though
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You can approach the situation as a realist, optimist, pessimist, nihilist, solipsist or whichever you like. It's best to simply be informed first of all and resist the urge to jump into simplistic and naïve conclusions.
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Interesting stuff here, but this discussion has deviated so much that maybe it would deserve a dedicated topic. The last posts should be moved.
About the exponential growth I believe that we are capable to come up with ways to replace oil in the future and it does not need to be about the word end.
And about population growth, we could also make other planets inhabitable if we get smart enough... or implement some mass birth control system otherwise.
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this discussion has deviated so much
(http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/lachen/laughing-smiley-004.gif)
mass birth control system
How about "self-control?"
Why is this such an unpopular concept?! No one would have to impose restrictions on anyone else and everyone would benefit: mature adults would have resources and motivation to improve their "families" (communities). Of course children would still be born, but not as many (eventually) and they would come into a world where vast numbers of role models demonstrate the beauty of the "wealth" available to a person who has enough energy and focus to wholly satisfy themselves.
whitebox84, when you've finished Lovelock's book I'd be interested to hear your perspective on it. I hope to view the video you posted over the weekend and I'll follow up. I love macro-economics.
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Re: the topic, Amir, are there any pasture-raised chicken, duck or other eggs where you live? If so, you could also eat raw eggs or egg yolks and that might be more palatable psychologically for you early on, if raw meat is difficult for you.
P.S. I read some of your posts at your other forum, and I find them refreshingly open, honest, rational and inquisitive, compared to what I usually find in vegan/vegetarian forums, and free of dogma.
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Thank you for the kind words, PaleoPhil. I'm focusing on the Tom Billings beyondveg.com site to accompany the varied raw vegan/vegan sources that are amply available. I'll hopefully also soon receive the 811 book by Dr.Doug Graham to better understand his take on things (as well as his grain damage and athletic book). I need to get a fully rounded understanding of everything and make the healthy, sensible, choice based on what makes sense.
I actually started eating raw organic eggs since last week, so it's great that we're on the same page on that. ;)
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I like your approach of checking out a variety of perspectives and experimenting to find out what works for you. That's basically what I did and I think many others here did as well.
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I'll hopefully also soon receive the 811 book by Dr.Doug Graham to better understand his take on things (as well as his grain damage and athletic book).
I can introduce you to dozens of people, online and off, who deeply regret ever having tried the high-fruit 8/1/1 diet. Doug's methods destroyed my teeth and caused massive, debilitating panic attacks.
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I can introduce you to dozens of people, online and off, who deeply regret ever having tried the high-fruit 8/1/1 diet. Doug's methods destroyed my teeth and caused massive, debilitating panic attacks.
Well, AV's advice and books similiarly helped give me panic-attacks and destroyed my teeth(due to the massive amounts of raw dairy he recommends) yet he helped me understand more of how to regain my health. Same with my raw vegan/fruitarian phase - I didn't have Doug Graham as a guru, but instead Leslie Kenton among others and she was useful, too, if not correct on innumerable issues.
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Well, AV's advice and books similiarly helped give me panic-attacks and destroyed my teeth(due to the massive amounts of raw dairy he recommends) yet he helped me understand more of how to regain my health. Same with my raw vegan/fruitarian phase - I didn't have Doug Graham as a guru, but instead Leslie Kenton among others and she was useful, too, if not correct on innumerable issues.
That's basically the same point I've tried to make in the past regarding Groves, Taubes, Weston Price, Dr. Harris, Dr. Dean Ornish and even the "fruitarianesque" SuperInfinity. One can disagree with someone on many key points and still potentially learn something from them, even if it's only one small thing. I have learned something from all of them even though I've disagreed with all of them on some things. It looks like I would disagree with Graham on most things, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of learning something from him.
It's even possible to learn from someone who you find to be wrong on everything, as their example may reveal various degrees of harm from certain unwise practices.
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I have never learned anything of use from Doug Graham. He lies needlessly and constantly. He always tells people he's been raw since 1993, but plenty of Costa Ricans have seen him eating beans and rice in Costa Rica, near Uvita, where he owns land. I know this, because I have lived in that town for months at at time. on a couple of occasions.
Seriously, he teaches nothing that other gurus aren't already teaching.
1. avoiding grains is taught by Aajonus and plenty of other raw food gurus.
2. avoiding cooked food? All the raw food gurus teach that.
I have nothing good to say about him.
Actually, scratch that. Trying to follow the 8/1/1 plan destroyed my teeth and mental calm so extremely and so fast that I had to really rethink how I was eating. Regular raw vegetarian/vegan was slowly hurting me, over years, but 8/1/1 is the fast track to destroying, if nothing else, your brain. The brain needs more fat than that, period. The teeth will deteriorate, too, although staying away from watery fruits and sticking to bananas/persimmons/sapote/durian/etc. will slow that process down.
So following Doug's plan was so harmful that it forced me in a different direction, toward raw animal foods.
Thanks, Doug.
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cherimoya, what was your diet like on 811? How long did it take for you to start experiencing the poor and harmful effects on your health and well being? I'm glad you're feeling better now.
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... Doug Graham. He lies needlessly and constantly. He always tells people he's been raw since 1993, but plenty of Costa Ricans have seen him eating beans and rice in Costa Rica, near Uvita, where he owns land. I know this, because I have lived in that town for months at at time...
I think he's about 57 years old. Many raw vegans try to say he's 65 or 70, and that he looks so good for that. I have to hand him, he is in fairly good athletic shape. I have family members much older than that, that eat conventional cooked meat, and are very active and look about as good. 1993 or less? Raw vegan worshipers of his say he's been raw since teen years. Hmm.
... Trying to follow the 8/1/1 plan destroyed my teeth and ... The teeth will deteriorate, too, although staying away from watery fruits and sticking to bananas/persimmons/sapote/durian/etc. will slow that process down.
So following Doug's plan was so harmful that it forced me in a different direction, toward raw animal foods.
Thanks, Doug.
My teeth and bones suffered fruitarian. Maybe I got a little scurvy from it, some bones bent and retained this new form. When I did this in my twenties this didn't happen, but I did include starchy fruits. In my thirties is when it happened, and I included no starchy fruit then. Thank you. It helps writing all this and reading others' input. I didn't know all the effects of less watery fruit.
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cherimoya, what was your diet like on 811? How long did it take for you to start experiencing the poor and harmful effects on your health and well being? I'm glad you're feeling better now.
I ate mostly bananas and some wild greens for about 8 months or so, and the teeth problems slowly got worse over this time. However, after that, I tried eating lots of apples, pears, and some citrus, with spinach, for about 4 months. The tooth problems got much, much worse, and the panic attacks and anxiety were absolutely terrible. The watery fruits are much harder on the teeth, particularly the really sweet/sour ones.
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I think he's about 57 years old. Many raw vegans try to say he's 65 or 70, and that he looks so good for that. I have to hand him, he is in fairly good athletic shape. I have family members much older than that, that eat conventional cooked meat, and are very active and look about as good. 1993 or less? Raw vegan worshipers of his say he's been raw since teen years. Hmm.
Doug was born in March of 1953. I was a member of his vegsource.com forum for quite a while, and I also corresponded with him via email for a while. I was wanting to be the caretaker of his land in Costa Rica. The guy wanted me to pay him to be his caretaker. How hilarious.
Doug is one of those people who has lies and insidious half-truths constantly swirling around him, some he has told, and some that others have told. It's a constant cloud of lies that regenerates itself constantly. LOL Whatever. If people are really stupid enough to believe all the hype, there's nothing I can do about it, on a large scale. It's amazing what people will believe. Do people really say he's 65 or 70? The archives over at the vegsource forum have posts from him saying "today's my birthday. I'm 51" or whatever, from back in 2004 or thereabouts. The archives also have a LOT of posts where he says he's been raw since 1993 or 1994. Wow. People will just believe anything, even without verification.
I have to say, Doug is just really bald with his lies. Most of the raw vegan gurus are lying about being 100% raw, but Doug has this whole long saga he tells, about starting to try to be all-raw in the early 80s, and failing again and again, until he finally discovers 8/1/1 high sweet fruit, and then all his desire to eat cooked just magically falls away. It's hilarious, and totally inaccurate. It's quite the involved little story, very detailed and well-told, and, according to the locals in Uvita, a total lie.
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Were you in touch with the 811 community and ask for their counsel on what's going on, what to do, etc?
The interesting thing is that there are some in that community (e.g. 30 bananas a day ning community) who seem to thrive on the long-term. I'm wondering if this is a question of the diet being 'wrong' altogether or that it only works for a certain subset of people. "Different strokes for different blokes", etc.
I was full 811 for about two months. I felt really good when I kept the greens intake high, particularly dark greens like spinach. However, with doubts creeping in I added significant amounts of raw fish (about 200-500grams per day) and some raw eggs. I've also been experimenting with adding steamed vegetables (10-25% of my daily diet right now) which may have caused me to catch the cold I'm recovering with right now.
Eating the raw fish and eggs definitely doesn't seem to have any adverse effects. In fact, my body really seems to enjoy it. However I'm keeping up a high intake of fruits and greens and I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. The issue of bloog sugar, from the 811 point of view, isn't on sugar itself (at least not natural sugar) but rather high sugar in combination with high fat. Overconsumption of fats, from their perspective, interferes with insulin efficacy and therefore strains the pancreas, adrenals and inevitably the entire system.
In any case, I'm feeling fairly well with this diet right now. I need to see about whether I'll be keeping the steamed vegetables in the diet or not, though. The jury is still out as I read up and learn more and test it on my body firsthand.
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Were you in touch with the 811 community and ask for their counsel on what's going on, what to do, etc?
The interesting thing is that there are some in that community (e.g. 30 bananas a day ning community) who seem to thrive on the long-term. I'm wondering if this is a question of the diet being 'wrong' altogether or that it only works for a certain subset of people. "Different strokes for different blokes", etc.
Lies, lies, lies, from lying liars. LOL No, seriously, you can't survive for more than a few years eating that way 100%. If you're cheating with animal foods, and higher-fat other foods, you can last a lot longer. I most definitely was in contact with the 8/1/1 community. I was a regular contributor to Doug's vegsource forum, which has been going strong from at least 2002, I think.
Fortunately for me, my willpower is so incredibly strong that I was able to do the 8/1/1 diet with no cheating for quite a few months, and witness what it does in all its full power and glory on my body and mind firsthand. As well, I have a quite a few raw foodist friends who also have similar levels of dedication, and they too experienced what I did. The watery fruits will destroy you fast, the drier ones more slowly. In the end, you're dead. I don't give a damn what people say, I have seen it in the real world. I was hanging out at Cascada Verde, the raw foods retreat, near Doug's land in Uvita, Costa Rica, back in 2003 and 2004, and was able to really talk deeply with a lot of raw foodists who had come there to be his caretaker and/or hang out at Cascada Verde. They all had similar stories to mine. It doesn't work long term.
I was full 811 for about two months. I felt really good when I kept the greens intake high, particularly dark greens like spinach. However, with doubts creeping in I added significant amounts of raw fish (about 200-500grams per day) and some raw eggs. I've also been experimenting with adding steamed vegetables (10-25% of my daily diet right now) which may have caused me to catch the cold I'm recovering with right now.
You don't need the steamed veggies. If you've got to to eat some, make it dark leafy greens, don't steam them too much, and don't eat more than a couple of ounces a day, max. But you can experiment, if you want.
Eating the raw fish and eggs definitely doesn't seem to have any adverse effects. In fact, my body really seems to enjoy it. However I'm keeping up a high intake of fruits and greens and I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. The issue of bloog sugar, from the 811 point of view, isn't on sugar itself (at least not natural sugar) but rather high sugar in combination with high fat. Overconsumption of fats, from their perspective, interferes with insulin efficacy and therefore strains the pancreas, adrenals and inevitably the entire system.
I don't think large amounts of raw sweet fruit really cause diabetes, but I could be wrong. That's not the point, anyway. The diet will screw up your brain badly. You need fats to make and transport hormones and neurotransmitters. No fats=fat soluble vitamins cannot be transported in the body.
I had to go extremely high-fat/low-carb for over 2 years before I could eat significant amounts of fruit again without having panic attacks. Even now, I eat a lot of bone meal and healing clays to keep the fruit from destroying my teeth, and I always either brush my teeth or swish with bone meal right after eating fruit, or any carbs, really. Even so, I do have a little gum bleeding, although that's probably partly from the large amounts of Omega-3-rich smelt roe that I eat.
In any case, I'm feeling fairly well with this diet right now. I need to see about whether I'll be keeping the steamed vegetables in the diet or not, though. The jury is still out as I read up and learn more and test it on my body firsthand.
Feel free to test. I have outlined the correct parameters above. Stray from that carefully, if at all. You will either follow my path before testing, or you will follow it after, I promise. LOL
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Thanks for sharing your experience. I appreciate it.
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there are some in that community (e.g. 30 bananas a day ning community) who seem to thrive
"Seem to" is my gut reaction here.
There are nutrients that are not available in a vegan diet. Such as vitamin B-12.
I'm sorry to say this, but my impression is one of addiction. There is a lot of drug "speak" and sexual innuendo. Not well-grounded. Not serious, mature, or powerful. Not calm.
The body image supported there is greatly distorted. Abnormalities in health are considered inconsequential and even embraced. This is the very definition of an eating disorder.
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Let me tell you a little something about bananas.
30 bananas a day is only possible when the bananas are of low nutritional quality. When they are grown on good soil and have high nutrient content, the taste change comes much faster, and you can't eat more than 1/3 of that amount daily, or less. It doesn't work.
I get burro bananas and quadrato bananas at my local international market. I have eaten them in Costa Rica quite a bit as well, ripe, right off the banana plant, grown on rich volcanic soil. You simply cannot compare them to even the organic bananas that you can get from Ecuador. The taste is totally different. It's much richer, more complex, with sour notes and other subtle flavors. The taste change comes much faster, and that's just how it is.
I used to eat 50 (fifty, not a typo) of the conventional grocery store bananas a day. It was very easy. I was only able to eat 30 of the Ecuadorean organic bananas daily, since the taste change was much faster. I can only eat about maybe 1/4 of that of the burro/quadrato bananas. The taste change is much faster and more extreme.
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Fascinating. I'm only half-steeped in that instincto principle, however I understand it sufficiently enough to follow your point.
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whitebox84, i'm guessing you are active participant on 30bad forum, well it is good you are questioning frutarian dogma.
have you notice most of their active users are young people in their 20s and 30s? most of them never had any health issues to begin with. have you read numerous reports where women stop having periods on 811 diet? do you think this is normal? i think not.
there are few older people there but they look pretty sickly, very thin and frail.
most healthy people in their 20s-30s can eat pretty much any crap and feel OK. it takes years of abuse like that for health problems to appear.
try doing a heavy workout and see how quick you recover eating only fruits.
then compare it with meats and fats.
i'm sure you'll see a difference.
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If someone is a consistent or pathological liar, like was implied about one diet guru (which I don't know enough to comment about), then it would be extremely difficult and risky to learn anything from them, although one theoretically could still use one of their tips that seemed promising as just a starting point and cross-check it with a reliable source. However, if I became convinced that someone was a consistent liar I wouldn't bother reading any more of their material anyway.
Most diet proponents lie somewhere in between pathological liar and purely honest angel on the truthiness scale and somewhere in between ignoramous and encyclopedia on the knowledge scale. Few are wrong 100% of the time. It's actually difficult to be 100% wrong even if you're trying. :) Most, if not all, people are wrong some of the time, so I tend to check multiple sources on anything important.
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If someone is a consistent or pathological liar, like was implied about one diet guru (which I don't know enough to comment about), then it would be extremely difficult and risky to learn anything from them, although one theoretically could still use one of their tips that seemed promising as just a starting point and cross-check it with a reliable source. However, if I became convinced that someone was a consistent liar I wouldn't bother reading any more of their material anyway.
Most diet proponents lie somewhere in between pathological liar and purely honest angel on the truthiness scale and somewhere in between ignoramous and encyclopedia on the knowledge scale. Few are wrong 100% of the time. It's actually difficult to be 100% wrong even if you're trying. :) Most, if not all, people are wrong some of the time, so I tend to check multiple sources on anything important.
Doug takes lying to a whole other level. Of course, all the raw vegan gurus are giant liars anyway, with few exceptions. They all eat plenty of cooked food. Ann Wigmore is a perfect example. I'm not trying to be mean, because I think she's a nice lady, but there's NO WAY that Viktoria Boutenko is that fat eating raw vegan. There's just no way. I've seen her weight yo-yo up and down for years, and the last time I saw her, she had to be well over 200 pounds, and she's only about 5'5". She was quite obese. People just need to be honest.
I really don't like to say bad things about people, but, when you're wrong, you're wrong. There's got to be some clarity, and I really don't appreciate being lied to. I'm also not a big fan of ignorance.
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Of course, all the raw vegan gurus are giant liars anyway, with few exceptions. They all eat plenty of cooked food. Ann Wigmore is a perfect example... I'm also not a big fan of ignorance.
I have spent time day after day directly with Ann Wigmore herself. I'm not saying her way was right or wrong, but I am witness she prepared and ate what she taught. I liked her. Maybe some can come to me and say they know someone who witnessed otherwise to them. I only know what I know.
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Doug takes lying to a whole other level. Of course, all the raw vegan gurus are giant liars anyway, with few exceptions. ...
Perhaps the Graham example was a bit extreme, since I doubt I would read a vegan's books anyway at this point in my journey (given my past bad experiences with vegetarianism and what I've learned from research) and there have been enough bad stories about the 811 diet here to make sure most people with sense will steer clear of it, I think, but since some people are more skeptical of the pro-meat crowd I thought it only fair to mention some pro-veg folks. The example was intentionally extreme to make a point: I think it is possible to learn even from one's mortal enemies and from the Devil himself (if there were actually a devil :) ). This happens very rarely, but it can happen. Sometimes the lesson may be the opposite of what the wrongheaded guru wanted to convey (such as the poor health and appearance of many raw vegan/fruitarian advocates revealing their basic dietary views to be nonsense). So I think it is possible to shut out alternative views too much and give oneself tunnel vision, in addition to the possibility of naively giving too much credence and using too little skepticism re: gurus like Taubes and Ornish. The balance that has worked for me lies somewhere in between those extremes.
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I have spent time day after day directly with Ann Wigmore herself. I'm not saying her way was right or wrong, but I am witness she prepared and ate what she taught. I liked her. Maybe some can come to me and say they know someone who witnessed otherwise to them. I only know what I know.
I'm not saying Ann, or any other guru, didn't eat SOME raw food. However, I have heard several reports that, when she stayed with someone as a guest, she would eat a breakfast of fruit, and then go on a walk, stop at a restaurant, and have a big meal of cooked bacon, eggs, etc. I'm not saying that makes her the Devil, just that, like pretty much all the other raw gurus, she was eating cooked, and regularly. Just a fact.
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What do you mean by several "reports"? Who were these reporters? I don't know that I accept it as a fact. I did not see her eat those things. I saw her soaking and peeling almonds. I saw her own sprouts, sprout container etc. I saw her blending energy soup ingredients. I saw her making and drinking her famous pink "champagne" and almond "milk". I saw her walk through fruit fields. I walked with her barefoot outdoors every morning. I saw her feed her dog raw food (with raw chicken). I spent enough time with her consistently that I know proof positive that she ate more than SOME raw food. I can also be a good judge of character, and I looked in her eyes when she talked to me alone etc. Does your reporter have that close experience? She was accustomed to getting lots of amino acids and lots of fatty acids by the way she skillfully prepared her food. Could be your friend was an 8-1-1er trying to force her to become frutarian. Ever think of that?
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What do you mean by several "reports"? Who were these reporters? I don't know that I accept it as a fact. I did not see her eat those things. I saw her soaking and peeling almonds. I saw her own sprouts, sprout container etc. I saw her blending energy soup ingredients. I saw her making and drinking her famous pink "champagne" and almond "milk". I saw her walk through fruit fields. I walked with her barefoot outdoors every morning. I saw her feed her dog raw food (with raw chicken). I spent enough time with her consistently that I know proof positive that she ate more than SOME raw food. I can also be a good judge of character, and I looked in her eyes when she talked to me alone etc. Does your reporter have that close experience? She was accustomed to getting lots of amino acids and lots of fatty acids by the way she skillfully prepared her food. Could be your friend was an 8-1-1er trying to force her to become frutarian. Ever think of that?
I'd like to believe that all the raw food gurus are telling the truth about being 100% raw. However, almost none of them really are. I seriously doubt Ann would have survived to age 84 in great health, as she did, without eating animal products regularly. It's not a big deal to me, either way, I'm just saying that, seeing as how the rest of them lie, and seeing how Ann was in such good health to such an old age, it's not hard to believe that she was eating some animal products regularly. Let's put it this way: you believe what you want. Don't assault me over it, though. There's no point in getting worked up.
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... seeing how Ann was in such good health to such an old age, it's not hard to believe that she was eating some animal products regularly. Let's put it this way: you believe what you want. Don't assault me over it, though. There's no point in getting worked up.
Truth is that although her dLiving Food LifestyleTM wasn't ideal, it was a thousand times more nutritious than 8/1/1. I know. I've done a bunch of diets. I don't mean it as assault to you. I'm sorry if it's coming off that way. I want truth, especially where I have experience.
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RawZi, I appreciate your sharing firsthand experience on the matter. Highly insightful.
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Would, for example, eating 10-15 bananas a day constitute a harmful act to a diet? I've noticed that eating multiple mangos causes bloating/distension. In fact, I suspect it contributed to me losing my flat tummy and gaining a small belly which is now difficult to get rid of. I ate about 600 grams of raw fish today which demonstrates my diet is more raw omnivore (or paleo) than it is raw vegan. I could easily eat a pound of salmon in one go, it's absolutely delicious. Tuna not so much, though it has a refreshing and grounding feeling to it. I have 1-2 raw eggs per day as well.
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<<Quote from: RawZi on Yesterday at 10:32:14 PM
What do you mean by several "reports"? Who were these reporters? I don't know that I accept it as a fact. I did not see her eat those things. I saw her soaking and peeling almonds. >>
... you believe what you want. Don't assault me over it, though. There's no point in getting worked up.
Cherimoya, I didn't see RawZi's questions as an assault on you, I thought they were reasonable questions. If hearsay is going to be put forward as evidence, it should at least include the sources of the hearsay so we can investigate them. If the sources can't be provided then they should not be offered as evidence. Unsupported hearsay is not regarded as evidence in journalism, law or science, whereas RawZi's firsthand experience is. And I say this as someone who is also skeptical of many of the claims of raw vegans.
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Thank you for filling us in on what you're eating, and how you're managing there being unavailable grassfed meat. Are you finding certain times what you like better than others to eat the fish and eggs?
When my son was at least two he started avoiding bananas. Like any other child he still liked all other fruit (and does today). Then when we were in the tropics, during mango season, he had to swear off mangoes. We weren't always 100% raw, but we were for a good part of that time. Being 100% raw, mangoes messed with his digestion too much. So he actually chose to eat a good deal of bananas every day when we lived on "Mango Road", as bananas were easy to get even though the only sweet fruit ripe everywhere around on trees and falling off them was mango.
For my first five months on RGJAF (raw green juice and animal food), salmon was my best flesh food. I never liked meat much at all, but salmon did taste good. My body was loving salmon (although I did vary my flesh foods and the other ones felt good). Not now though. My body is prefering terrestrial animal meat. It feels like I've gotten enough of the nutrients salmon provide to fill my stores, the types of fat in particular.
... bananas a day constitute a harmful act to a diet? I've noticed that eating multiple mangos causes bloating/distension. In fact, I suspect it contributed to me losing my flat tummy and gaining a small belly which is now difficult to get rid of. I ate about 600 grams of raw fish today which demonstrates my diet is more raw omnivore (or paleo) than it is raw vegan. I could easily eat a pound of salmon in one go, it's absolutely delicious. ...
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Are you finding certain times what you like better than others to eat the fish and eggs?
Sorry, RawZi, can you clarify this part or rephrase? I'm unsure what you are asking. Thanks
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Sorry, RawZi, can you clarify this part or rephrase? I'm unsure what you are asking. Thanks
Before or after work outs? All day long? First thing in the morning? Combined with fruits? I am curious to your eating schedule, as far as what works for you? I'm just curious. I hope you don't mind. Thanks.
Oh I see. I meant to write "THAT" you like better, not "what" you like better.
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I love to have the salmon for lunch but that's probably arbitrary. It would sure be nice to have it after a workout as well. It definitely becomes a more expensive day if I were to eat it three times throughout, though I could afford to. I suppose the jury is still out in my mind regarding diets. I'm studying the material and testing things out. Eating close to a pound of greens per day, including 100-150 grams of Spinach (or dark green leaf) seems indispensible to ensuring I feel good. I have the raw egg in the morning but I'm going to start increasing intake of them to probably 2-4 in a day and see how that goes. I think combining them into a smoothie which has bananas in them (and hence sugar) causes indigestion...just like how 811'ers aren't supposed to add nuts or avocados, anything with high-fat, into sugar meals. Of course, my diet is not 811 anymore, it's something of a Frankenstein at this stage.
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Have you tried unheated honey? I know some paleo members, the ZC'ers in particular have concerns and have not tried honey, or maybe they actually had a bad experience, Idk, but I find unheated honey combined with any food works well.
... Eating close to a pound of greens per day, including 100-150 grams of Spinach (or dark green leaf) seems indispensible to ensuring I feel good. I have the raw egg in the morning but I'm going to start increasing intake of them to probably 2-4 in a day and see how that goes. I think combining them into a smoothie which has bananas in them (and hence sugar) causes indigestion...just like how 811'ers aren't supposed to add nuts or avocados, anything with high-fat, into sugar meals. ...
I know instincto has its points, but I've eaten (raw) goat butter combined with banana or other times (raw) egg combined with orange wedges in a meal with no stomach upset. By smoothie, do you mean with greens in it? You may tolerate them, I know many rawists claim it's like a (wonderful) drug high. If you don't do them, forgive me for getting OT. Drinking a small portion of a regular green smoothie made me terribly stopped up. Then I read all these rawists who had been vegan, then started to add an egg to their smoothie and swear by it. I finally tried that one, and the first and only also upset my intestine. Just sharing my experience, hopefully it might save you some grief.
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I'll try the egg in the smoothe tomorrow. I've done it a few times in the last month and I was reluctant to continue, especially since it's easy to have the egg by itself anyway (30 or so minutes after the smoothie). Now that my digestion is used to raw fish on a daily basis I think it'll be less fussy about food combinations compared to when I was on fruit and green leaf alone. Thanks for sharing, buddy.
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To be clear, energy soup which has some similarity to green smoothie but is made with sprouts and either rejuvelac or watermelon rind does not bother my body. Also, when I did try green smoothie, I had already been an RAFer for two and a half years. I have drank raw green soups before (no sweet fruit and instead of water or rejuvelac use peeled raw tomato) with no ill effect to my system.
By smoothie, do you mean with greens in it? You may tolerate them, I know many rawists claim it's like a (wonderful) drug high. If you don't do them, forgive me for getting OT. Drinking a small portion of a regular green smoothie made me terribly stopped up. Then I read all these rawists who had been vegan, then started to add an egg to their smoothie and swear by it. I finally tried that one, and the first and only also upset my intestine.
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...just like how 811'ers aren't supposed to add nuts or avocados, anything with high-fat, into sugar meals. Of course, my diet is not 811 anymore, it's something of a Frankenstein at this stage.
The findings of 811 dieters that they often become deficient in fats and craving of them and need to up their intake of avocados or nuts matches my findings from research and my own experience, that fats are the most crucial and deficient of the three macronutrient categories in modern diets. It's important to eat the right kinds of fats (those fats most closely resembling fats found in the wild that are most bioavailable for humans and other primates--such as wild animal, fish and insect fats, with avocado and coconut fats being some of the better plant fats, but possibly less bioavailable than animal fats) and finding which of the more wild-type fats you can digest well and do well on.
RawZi, I am a ZC/Carnivore who has tried raw honey. For whatever reason it gives me an unpleasant burning sensation in my throat, and it causes small acne breakouts if I eat more than a tablespoon or so once in a great while. It does soothe my stomach as any sugar does in the short run, though it is extremely rare that I get stomach upsets any more. So at this point it is a rare "cheat" food for me. All carnivores except obligate and hyper carnivores eat some nonfaunal foods, so I allow myself raw honey or raw berries and other raw plant foods at times--usually at work or social occasions. It also helps to fit in a little. I'm not a 100% purist. My GI system is sufficiently healed and my immune system sufficiently calmed down that I can cheat occasionally without severe reactions. However, I do have to be careful to avoid rekindling old carb cravings.
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<<Quote from: RawZi on Yesterday at 10:32:14 PM
What do you mean by several "reports"? Who were these reporters? I don't know that I accept it as a fact. I did not see her eat those things. I saw her soaking and peeling almonds. >>
Cherimoya, I didn't see RawZi's questions as an assault on you, I thought they were reasonable questions. If hearsay is going to be put forward as evidence, it should at least include the sources of the hearsay so we can investigate them. If the sources can't be provided then they should not be offered as evidence. Unsupported hearsay is not regarded as evidence in journalism, law or science, whereas RawZi's firsthand experience is. And I say this as someone who is also skeptical of many of the claims of raw vegans.
Ann Wigmore claimed to have been a strict vegan for decades. I simply don't think she was, for 3 reasons
1. Vegans aren't very healthy, long-term
2. Lots/most raw food gurus eat cooked food and animal products regularly, and lie about it
3. Ann's health was excellent
I don't have to prove anything here. The preponderance of the evidence is against her actually having been a strict vegan for decades. It's not a big deal to me, but I will tear down lying raw gurus, and viciously. I have a right. These lies hurt my health. This is a forum for what WORKS, not what sounds nice, or Godly, or holy, or spiritual, or any other thing.
I'm about 99.9% sure that Ann Wigmore was a liar, and I'd bet everything in my bank account on that being fact, plus my next 30 paychecks. I will suspend/ban anyone who attacks me for saying it.
I don't care if Doug Graham's sainted MOTHER posts here, I will say the truth about him. I will not be gentle. I shouldn't be. A great way to expose lies is to expose the liars as liars. They need discrediting. In my humble opinion, anyway.
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Would, for example, eating 10-15 bananas a day constitute a harmful act to a diet?
15 medium bananas will give you about 400! grams of carbs, of which sugars are 210 grams. That's half a pound of pure sugar!
How can this be healthy?
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Well, the odd thing to me is how we always utilize science and measurements when deciding whether something is harmful or not. It doesn't feel intuitive to look into the amount of sugar (with no mention of what kind of sugar) and conclude that it has to be harmful. Does eating 15 bananas in a day have a harmful effect on blood sugar? Does it causes energy highs and lows? Is it bad for you in combination with high fat intake or simply in and of itself? Right now all I get is contradictions depending on which camp you ask the questions to. That Steve Pavlina guy was testing his blood sugar throughout the 30 day vegan diet and it all played out normal. Of course, we could follow cherimoya's angry approach and point our fingers while shouting out "lies, liars and bastards!" but I'm rather relaxed and not interested in indulging in that type of behaviour.
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Well, it's natural for someone who's had life-threatening health-problems happen to them on a particular diet to go somewhat overly berserk at any claims that the relevant diet is healthy in some way. I have to admit that I myself was in a bit of a powerful rage in my Primal-Diet phase when Aajonus and numerous Primal Dieters kept on insisting to me that it was physically impossible for anyone to be allergic to raw (grassfed) dairy. It took me a great while to accept, that, just possibly, some people might do OK or fine on raw dairy(I'm still sceptical, though, as, time and time again, people who've told me they do fine on it, eventually admit they do better without it).
That said, my own raw vegan/fruitarian experience was mildly beneficial, in my own case. The incredibly painful stomach-aches/digestive problems I had with cooked animal foods made me absolutely loathe the cooked-meat-diet gurus, for the most part,and turning raw vegan eliminated those issues. Plus, I lost weight(which had never once happened on a cooked-meat diet, however low-carb), and some other minor issues disappeared or were alleviated simply because I wasn't consuming the vast amounts of heat-created toxins I'd had with diets involving lightly-cooked meats. Not that raw vegan/fruitarian diets were a lifesaver for me, I just did "less worse" on them than on cooked-meat diets.
So, despite my heavy scepticism, I therefore don't discount the possibility that some/few raw vegan/fruitarians might be OK re health. I've heard of gimmicks:- for example, there was that Iranian tribe which consumed a mostly vegan(mostly raw vegan?) which did not suffer from the usual issues Western vegans did(eg;- b12 deficiency etc.) because the vegetables were grown in manure, so that they effectively got their b12 from faeces. I'd imagine that they also consumed insects found on the plants, unlike Western vegans who just eat sterilised veg/fruit, which would help to counter deficiencies. Another point is that children raised on 100% Western vegan diets seem to do (universally?) extremely badly, whereas people who turn to raw vegan diets as adults are, at least, protected for a time, due to having built up reserves of various nutrients over the years on meat-heavy diets. And, then, of course, if someone supplemented extremely heavily with all sorts of supplements to counter any deficiencies(algae etc.), and ate lots of raw plant fat(eg:- avocado) to compensate for missing animal fat, that might offset some potential issues as well.
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Ann Wigmore claimed to have been a strict vegan for decades. I simply don't think she was, for 3 reasons
1. Vegans aren't very healthy, long-term
2. Lots/most raw food gurus eat cooked food and animal products regularly, and lie about it
3. Ann's health was excellent
I knew her differently. She was not a Vegan around me, as she frequently made her "champagne" which she did use local honey to make, and she did not hide that. She also fed her dog raw chicken and did not attempt to hide that (plenty of Vegans on GI2MR force their cats and dogs to eat only Vegan food). Around me, the impression she gave was a striving to constantly evolve and at the time using plant products more and more to HOPEFULLY only use them, as (a possible) experiment. For example, she allowed clay therapy when I first met her, but then decided that since clay is not a plant, to use plants instead for similar therapies. Another example of non-Vegan is her permission to use Clorox in the laundry, as a true Vegan would not kill anything directly (even germs at least I tried not to). I never noticed her fussing about insects either, not in any capacity. Most Vegans and other "ethical" vegetarians that I've known make points to show they don't eat nor kill insects. Insects just didn't bother her. Believe me, there were tons of insects around. Vegans in my experience are usually out to prove how lacking in culpability they are, think they love the planet better than the next guy and think they don't hurt any being that crawls etc unlike all of the rest of the humans in their judgement and that humans are evil unless they are Vegans. They may act like the last three descriptions because of some unresolved issues in their souls, that it is possible they are unaware of.
Dr. Ann's health was better than mine (more muscle and better recovery time etc), but I came there recovering from illness. IMO her face showed the ravages of Advanced Glycation End-Products from the years Vegan food she ate. That is not a healthy sign. I don't think it was from aging from before she went raw. She went raw at age fifty, and no one has such a wrinkly ugly face at age fifty. Her face was really ugly IMO. I have relatives older than her that have better looking face. They have never gone a day without cooked meat in their adult lives. I think this shows that there were possibly other health problems inside her body that just were not visible to the eye. She did like people to get tests done to prove their illnesses and recoveries, but I've never seen test results that were hers. I am curious what it might have shown.
Let's agree to disagree. I knew a different person than you do, as far as her. As far as the rest of the vegetarian and Vegan gurus, I have met a number of them. Like I said, I can judge people pretty well. Let's just say that I have a poor impression of most of the ones I met. I don't like detailing negatives. Thanks for understanding.
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Well, the odd thing to me is how we always utilize science and measurements when deciding whether something is harmful or not. It doesn't feel intuitive to look into the amount of sugar (with no mention of what kind of sugar) and conclude that it has to be harmful. Does eating 15 bananas in a day have a harmful effect on blood sugar? Does it causes energy highs and lows? Is it bad for you in combination with high fat intake or simply in and of itself? Right now all I get is contradictions depending on which camp you ask the questions to. That Steve Pavlina guy was testing his blood sugar throughout the 30 day vegan diet and it all played out normal. Of course, we could follow cherimoya's angry approach and point our fingers while shouting out "lies, liars and bastards!" but I'm rather relaxed and not interested in indulging in that type of behaviour.
I love your questions, whitebox, and these got me thinking about bananas again, which I find to have a fascinating history. I'll start a new thread on them, because my post will be rather lengthy and off-topic for this thread.
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Let's agree to disagree. I knew a different person than you do, as far as her. As far as the rest of the vegetarian and Vegan gurus, I have met a number of them. Like I said, I can judge people pretty well. Let's just say that I have a poor impression of most of the ones I met. I don't like detailing negatives. Thanks for understanding.
I'm certainly willing to ban you, if you'd like. I got banned from rawfoods.com message boards for talking about raw meat, and I'm faster on the banning than any mod here. Those two facts are going to work against you avoiding banning, I think.
I will ban the heck out of you. Let me be most clear about that. The vegans ban the meat-eaters from their message boards, and I will ban you.
I don't care how you feel about Ann. I care about the truth about healthy diet. That won't change.
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haha, what?
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Wait a minute, I'm confused. Didn't Rawzi basically concede that Cherimoya was right about Wigmore not really being a vegan here:
She was not a Vegan around me...
?
So don't you two basically agree now?
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cherimoya, could you list and describe your exact daily diet? I think it's important to make it public attention in case it's the cause of your having acquired sociopathic qualities.
Or you just have a special sense of humour. ;)
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Wait a minute, I'm confused. Didn't Rawzi basically concede that Cherimoya was right about Wigmore not really being a vegan here: ?
So don't you two basically agree now?
Whitebox thinks that using honey means that you're not a vegan. Her definition of veganism is based on some combination of morality and emotion. My definition of veganism includes honey. Functionally speaking, in terms of diet, honey is a vegan food. It doesn't have any of the nutritional factors that organ meats/fish/shelfish/roe do, that make eating animal products useful for health. My diet is determined by what's healthy before what's morally correct.
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cherimoya, could you list and describe your exact daily diet? I think it's important to make it public attention in case it's the cause of your having acquired sociopathic qualities.
Or you just have a special sense of humour. ;)
I'm a sociopath? OK. You're a non-member. 90 days from now, your ban will expire. I hope you can bring more to the forum next time, should you choose to return.
I really wasn't kidding. I'm sad that I have to ban vegans so viciously in order to make it clear that I won't tolerate vegan propaganda.
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Umm, please remember that many of our raw-meat-eating members, myself included, do also eat raw honey(and raw veg) and they generally view them as beneficial or at least not harmful in small to large quantities(depending on the relevant member).
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Oh, I do eat honeycomb sometimes, but I don't assume that should be anything other than a small part of my diet. It doesn't have any fat-soluble vitamins, nor really any water-soluble ones either, that I know of. It's also not very mineral-rich. I can tell that it increases my tooth sensitivity very quickly, so I don't eat very much of it.
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Have I missed something? Why are people being banned/threatened with banning?
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Have I missed something? Why are people being banned/threatened with banning?
seriously! why the hell would you ban a former vegan who is turning to raw animal foods? i just don't get it. who cares if the guy was still skeptical of raf? he was obviously a smart guy. pretty much all of us were in his same shoes at some point on our transition from raw vegan to raw paleo. totally unnecessary in my opinion
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have to agree with Yon. Didn't see any problem with what he was saying, I too pose my doubts to others to test the waters. Otherwise it's just blind adherence. I can remember writing The Bear about how the Inuit ate fish and rib bones. He wrote me back saying that I had mental disorders.... A lot of us have ruined our health following one diet or another, so for me it's a pretty healthy sign to be questioning what others are experiencing.
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seriously! why the hell would you ban a former vegan who is turning to raw animal foods? i just don't get it. who cares if the guy was still skeptical of raf? he was obviously a smart guy. pretty much all of us were in his same shoes at some point on our transition from raw vegan to raw paleo. totally unnecessary in my opinion
This forum isn't for skeptics to talk about how smart the 30-bananas-a-day guys are. It's also not an Ann Wigmore Memorial Forum, either. It's a raw animal foods forum.
The truth is, I've been treated far, far worse on raw vegan forums than I treat the vegans here.
It's not so much what whitebox84 said, as the direction she was going. She was getting less and less respectful, and more openly disrespectful. First she says that there are some imbalanced people here, then calls me a sociopath. It was getting worse and worse, just like it did with SuperInfinity. And guess what? SuperInfinity is still posting. I banned him for the 4th time yesterday, and TylerDurden deleted his thread. These vegans don't stop. You have to stop them. We were too patient with SuperInfinity.
The reality is that vegans are the biggest threat to this forum, in terms of spamming/trolling. We have had a few commercial spammers, but they usually just post one or twice, and then go away. The vegans appear to be more tenacious, and they are here specifically to insult/disrupt and spread propaganda.
If you don't like the job I'm doing, I invite you to try moderating a forum, sometime. Craig Bates quit, because it's not exactly fun. Between the Satyas, SuperInfinitys, etc.. and the sheer volume of messages, it's quite a task, and I do it for free. I don't make one thin dime off of this moderating work. I do it because I want to teach and learn. I'm sorry if you don't like the job I'm doing for free. People who call me a sociopath don't exactly end up on my good side. Free moderation shouldn't involve tolerating being called imbalanced or a sociopath.
I wouldn't tolerate members calling each other those things. Why should I tolerate a member calling a moderator that? Do I not deserve the same respect?
Besides, it's not even a permanent ban. I feel about 90% certain that whitebox84 will not have learned anything after 3 months, and will probably come back even more disrespectful. That will result in a longer ban, I promise. It's just like when SuperInfinity started posting, I was recommending a ban from day one, and all the other mods were telling me to wait. But guess what? They got sick of him, too, and, just to prove me right, he is still trolling here, even now.
If the vegans back down, I might start going easier on them. Not until then. They have their forums where they don't tolerate RAF talk. At least we allow the mention of veganism here.
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I didn't see whitebox anywhere near as threatening as superinfinity. I think what you might want to look at is the tone of your emails back and forth with her. In my opinion, they were antagonizing. I might of sounded of at you myself. One really hast to look deeply in the conveyed tone of one's communications, and not just simply at parts of an email that could be interpreted as offensive.
I don't think vegans have a chance against this forum. We all have too much experience to be even the slightest bit daunted.
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Not to be disrespectful, especial as you may be calling them by the opposite genders as an intentional insult, which would be fine with me, but I remember Superinfinity posting that she was female. I also remember whitebox signing his name as Amir, which has never been a female name but always a male name from anything I ever read. Just in case you didn't know, from all that I could find, and I do investigate a lot, this Amir is living as a male, has always been a male and has not portrayed himself as a female. I could be wrong about that though.
Also, in case you thought different, I am not a vegan. I eat raw ants, raw maggots, raw pork, raw lobster, raw brain, raw testicle, raw spleen, (raw) high meats, raw just about anything and plan to eat as much raw animal as I can for the rest of my life (without overeating as raw fat and good raw meat nutrients eliminate cravings). Any children in my future will eat raw meat. I discussed this with my husband who eats only vegan. I was a member of GI2MR at the time. I posted when he told me I could feed our children any way I want, and they all know I eat raw meat very well. I never hid my diet. After all, when I became a member there, their rules for the whole forum were written as a place for people who love to eat raw food. It did not mention what kind. I was looking for comradery among raw eaters, and did not know about raw paleo. You know I'm not vegan, right? :D
I had actually written a much longer response, but I don't think I need to prove how not vegan I am. And I fully agree with you on Superinfinity. I'm not sure about Whitebox though, as he/she was saying he/she is getting needed healing results eating raw tuna steak and raw salmon and even enjoying the taste etc. You could be right about whitebox too though. I am not all knowing. I only know what I sense in person.
I want truth as much as you do. I want health too.
It's not so much what whitebox84 said, as the direction she was going. She was getting less and less respectful, and more openly disrespectful. First she says that there are some imbalanced people here, then calls me a sociopath. It was getting worse and worse, just like it did with SuperInfinity. And guess what? SuperInfinity is still posting. I banned him for the 4th time yesterday, and TylerDurden deleted his thread. These vegans don't stop. You have to stop them. We were too patient with SuperInfinity.
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... It's just like when SuperInfinity started posting, I was recommending a ban from day one, and all the other mods were telling me to wait. But guess what? They got sick of him, too, and, just to prove me right, he is still trolling here, even now.
If the vegans back down, I might start going easier on them. Not until then. They have their forums where they don't tolerate RAF talk. At least we allow the mention of veganism here.
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Not to be disrespectful, especial as you may be calling them by the opposite genders as an intentional insult, which would be fine with me, but I remember Superinfinity posting that she was female. I also remember whitebox signing his name as Amir, ...
SuperInfinity was a man named Padraig. Amir is also a man.
Amir still seems to be leaning toward raw vegan, with some fish and eggs eaten as perhaps a compromise for health purposes, but if he decides to avoid grains, legumes, dairy, sugars and processed foods, he'd still technically qualify as an RPDer, although if he eats a ton of fruit like a dozen or so bananas in a day, that would make it somewhat of a distortion of RPD. At any rate, most of his posts were interesting and intelligent and he is one of the few raw vegans to question the 811-type vegan dogma and try some fish and eggs. It's up to the moderators to do as they wish, but is imitating the raw vegan forums by quickly banning people really the best way to go?
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SuperInfinity was a man named Padraig.
A man attempted contacting me reference raw food. His name is too similar to Padraig. What kind of name is that? Is that a real name? Something he made up? I found him very suspicious. I'm curious if this is the same person. Some how I thought SuperInfinity was a young man, then I thought they were a young woman. In either case, they're a very weird individual, and not worth having here by any stretch of the imagination.
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Padraig is SuperInfinity's real name, yes, which I used to refer to him as from time to time in past posts here, and he didn't seem to mind my using his name. It's Irish for Patrick, and a nice name, IMO. I don't want to share too much of his personal details without his permission, and I don't know much anyway. Suffice it to say I agree we are better off with him not posting here, but I don't think he intentionally means to be a troll--at least not at first. I think he basically is who he is through no fault of his own (but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate his behavior, of course).
I was curious as to whether he was ticking off the folks at the raw vegan forum he linked to, so I checked and found out he had already also got banned at that forum not long after he got banned here, and the main moderator there seems like a very tolerant, peaceful chap, so you can see why I think it's best if SI doesn't post here.
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I think he basically is who he is through no fault of his own...
... he had already also got banned at that forum not long after he got banned here, and the main moderator there seems like a very tolerant...
Sad. Probably such a pest due to so much fruit, and the tinned junk food. Diet can affect brain chemistry.
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Diet can affect brain chemistry.
Which is why I get so angry about veganism, particularly low-fat veganism. The poor nutrition harms your brain, which makes it harder for you to make intelligent decisions, including decisions about nutrition.
I feel like I totally have the right to ban anybody who doesn't bring something to the discussions here, and who also is getting in arguments with mods and members. Whitebox84 wasn't bringing anything of great use, and was not being particularly respectful. It would be different if he had years of experience with the diet, or if he was more respectful.
Besides, it's a temporary ban. I will say this, though...if he misbehaves when he comes back, it's going to make me a LOT more willing to quickly ban anyone who starts talking about veganism as if it were some kind of viable path. I don't have time for this crap.
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Sad. Probably such a pest due to so much fruit, and the tinned junk food. Diet can affect brain chemistry.
This is the classic "us" and "them" approach, which I tend to be uncomfortable with. I mean if we call other diet-followers retarded or overly aggressive or whatever , we just give others(eg:- whitebox) an excuse to (wrongly) call us savage/aggressive etc. for eating raw meat diets. People are too varied in character due to other non-dietary factors for us to categorise them in this way.
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Padraig is SuperInfinity's real name, yes, which I used to refer to him as from time to time in past posts here, and he didn't seem to mind my using his name. It's Irish for Patrick, and a nice name, IMO. I don't want to share too much of his personal details without his permission, and I don't know much anyway. Suffice it to say I agree we are better off with him not posting here, but I don't think he intentionally means to be a troll--at least not at first. I think he basically is who he is through no fault of his own (but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate his behavior, of course).
I was curious as to whether he was ticking off the folks at the raw vegan forum he linked to, so I checked and found out he had already also got banned at that forum not long after he got banned here, and the main moderator there seems like a very tolerant, peaceful chap, so you can see why I think it's best if SI doesn't post here.
If SuperInifinity been a genuine well-meaning raw vegan he would not have been banned from the raw vegan forum. It is a characteristic of trolls that they join numerous forums so as to get extra attention from others that they don't get in their real lives and then they attack whatever philosophy each of those forums holds, along with personal attacks; so on rawpalaeo forums they'll criticise raw-meat diets, on raw vegan forums they'll criticise 100% raw plant food diets etc. Controversy is fine and useful if it's genuine, but when it's just meant to be disruptive, then it's just a waste of posting-space.