I wonder if they explore the link between agriculture, environmental degradation, eating grains and beans as staples, and the suite of diseases that go along with it?  Nice to see the report, but I suspect it falls far short of connecting the relevant dots. 

Anyone have access to the report so that enquiring minds don't have to pay for it?

This isn't shower therapy per se, but for the last few years I've started swimming earlier and earlier in Lake Champlain, in northern Vermont, which is a reasonably short walk from my house. 

This year I jumped in April 2.  According to NOAA, the water temperature was 38 F (4 C).  The water was so cold it hurt my skin when I jumped in, but after ten seconds or so that passed and I swam until i started to shiver (which admittedly only took a minute or so).  I swam earlier this evening and the water temp has risen to 56 F (13 C) and could stay in for about ten minutes, although I was the only one at the crowded beach that was in the water at the time, and people were looking at me funny...

I think the coldest water I've swam in was about 34 F (1 C).  It was in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming.  It was a warm day in late May but there was still a fair amount of snow on the ground, and i found a deep pool while hiking and fishing and decided to strip down and jump in.  COLD!  I stayed in for less than a minute before i had to jump out and dry off, and even made a little fire to make some tea so i could regain my body temperature.  After i felt good again i fished in the pool and caught two brook trout.  I've never tasted fish that were so sweet and fresh!  Didn't eat them raw, though.  This was a few years ago, before I got into the raw paleo thing.

Very cool. What do you hunt?

My primary quarry is whitetail deer, but i'll put in for a moose permit this year and would take any legal herbivore.  I'm also toying with the idea of buying a turkey tag this year, as i had a couple good shots last year during deer season but had to pass because i didn't have a tag.

I ate some of the liver from the whitetail deer I shot last fall.  It also had a very mild flavor with a hint of sweetness.  I've found that I've taken to raw liver faster than to raw meat more generally, and whenever I go to the store I always walk down the meat isle to see if they have any grass-fed organs, particularly liver, on the shelf.  I usually buy it if they do, as the only organ I have left from my deer is its heart and I'm saving that for a special occasion.  Where I live organ meats are very inexpensive, last time I bought some I think I paid a whopping $1.99 per pound. 

It was a bit surreal eating the deer's liver straight from its body.  I was sitting out in a fairly dense forest at the base of a cliff, with boulders the size of SUVs strewn everywhere.  There were patches of snow here and there, and some frost remained on the ground in shady areas.  It was cool enough that when I opened the animal to start the field dressing process, everything that I took out of the animal was steaming heavily.  I'd bet I was able to eat about a pound of the liver before I got full, and didn't want to fill up too much because dragging the animal from the forest would be a lot of work and I didn't want to start feeling tired from a heavy meal.

Why should you juice anything?  If you want to eat raw liver, why not just eat raw liver?

Oil companies are indeed secretive, but some of us have connections and can get data. 

More importantly, though, the United States Geological Survey does global petroleum assessments using data gathered from many oil companies, and the resulting models and resource estimates are public information.  My research is based largely on these.  Since oil is a matter of national security, the USGS is well funded with regards to its petroleum assessment research, so I feel like their global resource estimates are the best available.  They also went province-by-province globally, so in addition to being publicly available their petroleum assessments by far the most thorough ever done. 

The USGS estimates that global technically recoverable "conventional" crude oil amounts to about 3 trillion barrels.  When I use this number with an empirical depletion indicator I developed based on the United States oil depletion profile, I end up forecasting that the global oil supply should have peaked sometime between 2000-2004.  Allow a little leeway for technical advances, and we're about due.  The last statistical maximum for crude oil was in July 2008, and global production's slipped a bit since then, so perhaps 2008 was the peak?  Of course, we really won't know for certain for another 30 years or so when we can look back.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

Regarding slugs, here's an article I found that addresses the parasite issue.  It seems to suggest that the parasites are mostly a problem in tropical areas.  I live (and eat) in a temperate area.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_969551.htm

I've eaten a variety of invertebrates raw, including slugs, earthworms, maggots, ants, mayflies, and beetle larvae. 

Slugs are very spicy (at least the ones I've eaten), maggots are subtly sweet and take the taste of what they're eating (I've picked them off deer carcasses, and have 'raised' them on fish that have been filleted in summer), ants taste like lemon candy because of the formic acid in their stingers, mayflies remind me of spinach, and beetle larvae have a variety of tastes and textures depending on the species and where it's been living.  Earthworms don't have much of a taste, as I generally don't chew them, just swallow, so I don't have to bother clearing their guts of grit.

I suspect that prior to inventing projectile weapons, invertebrates--including insects--made up the majority of the animal protein that our species consumed.  Think about it, we can't run particularly fast, don't have fierce teeth or claws, so in the absence of spears or bows & arrows how would we have gotten meat?  Answer:  we wouldn't, except for the rare instances when we found a dead animal another species had killed and we manage to chase it off.  Prior to developing projectile weapons, we were probably more often the prey than the predator, except as regards invertebrates and perhaps fish.

I think our aversion to them is largely cultural.  We've spent too long as Homo domesticus, and have been socialized to ignore an enormous and free source of high quality fat and protein in favor of ruminant meats that we have to pay for (and thus participate in wage slavery to earn).  Accepting invertebrates as part of our diets is a step towards dietary freedom, in my opinion.

Suggestions on acclimating:  start by eating a live ant, perhaps a carpenter ant.  Don't try a fire ant, or an army ant, or a bullet ant if you live in tropical areas, or a velvet ant if you live in temperate regions.  Find a field guide that covers your region to learn at least the groups of ant species, and avoid the ones that give nasty stings. 

Next step might be to set aside the beetle larvae you find when gardening, or to turn over logs in the forest and pick a few from the dead wood (you'll most likely find lots).  Beetle larvae come in all shapes and sizes, and most look vaguely like caterpillars.  Crush their heads before you put them into your mouth, otherwise you risk being bitten, which doesn't hurt particularly but most people aren't used to getting bitten by food so it could put you off.  The huge grubs that African natives relish are beetle larvae.  On that note, some caterpillars are edible, but not all, and some will give you a hellish sting or are quite toxic, so be careful.  I personally have never eaten a caterpillar and don't know their taxonomy well enough to try one.

Spring, summer and fall is the time for mayflies, so if you live in temperate regions with decent water quality, this is the time to feast.  I've read that indigenous tribes in North America would go to war over mayfly harvests.  Given their seasonal abundance and pleasant taste, I see why.

Most of the invertebrates I mentioned above are largely parasite free, at least in terms of parasites that can potentially become pathogenic in people.  Learn about invertebrates first, and try ones you can find at least a few sources that claim them to be edible (besides me).

Happy trails!

Thanks for your thoughts Paleodonk.  I've been doing a little more searching and just found out that while Lierre Kieth was lecturing on her book on California last month three vegan men who didn't like her message hit her in the face with cream pies that were heavily spiked with cayenne pepper.  Burned her eyes pretty bad, I guess.  Ironically enough, they did the deed while she was ripping on factory farming...

If you're limiting yourself to buying meat, then certainly eating a raw paleo diet will be very expensive.  Doubly so if you limit yourself to grass-fed meats, and trebly-so if you limit yourself to gourmet domestic game animals like bison.  Hunting helps to lower costs a lot, and learning your wild edible and medicinal plants helps even more.

One big issue that I think you're missing is how vegetables are grown and how that influences mineral content. 

Vegetables grown in depleted soil will be mineral deficient, no matter what type of vegetable they are.  Most of the vegetables you buy at the grocery store--even organic ones--have been grown on land that is probably quite depleted of its minerals.  Hence, most commercially available vegetables are deficient.

Wild plants are generally more mineral dense.  Meat is mineral dense because animals concentrate minerals through eating lots of whatever plants or other animals, and retaining some of the minerals in their various tissues.

If you are mineral deficient, I'd recommend incorporating wild foods into your diet, particularly animal foods.

Another side of the juicing question is whether we want to become dependent on machines to allow us to maintain our chosen diet.  

When I went raw last December, I planned on buying one of the fancy food processors (Vita-Mix) and a juicer so I could make all sorts of fancy raw food.  Within a week of starting my largely raw diet (above 80%) my tastes began to noticeably change, and the formerly bland foods that I needed to mix into a smoothy, juice, or make into sushi to eat started tasting distinctive and pleasant enough that I could eat them on their own, with no adulteration.  

Now, a few months later, not only have I never bought the Vita-Mix or juicer, I have also gotten rid of all my food-processing machines and rarely buy anything processed.  I just don't have a taste for processed foods anymore, and don't see any benefit to juicing or smoothies over eating the unprocessed ingredients individually provided you chew your vegetable foods well.  

The only food processors I own are a sharp chef's knife and my teeth.

I've used it to good effect when I caught a stomach bug, and others recommend it for gastrointestinal parasites.  I like it for its medicinal value, but it's not something I consume on a regular basis.