QuestionI lived in the San Francisco Bay Area until I was 11. I moved to Texas when my mom remarried until I was almost 18. This past september I moved back to California (sacramento area) to live with my uncle until I get into college (I'm now 18). In December i decided i would learn how to cook. I checked out a book on nutrition from the library (some giant encyclopedia sort of thing) and bought the Joy of Cooking. I was computing serving sizes/ratios and wanted to know a typical percent of weight lost by cooking meat. I came across some webpage warning against the damage done by cooking. Link followed link until I came across the whole paleo concept. The realization that techonology and culture have evolved so much faster than our DNA was startling. It meant that anything I've taken for granted as food could be totally unfit for human consumption. I bought Neanderthin and tried to go on merely eliminating grains and dairy and refined carbs. I didnt feel much different and had a hard time making appetizing dishes. I then came across the concept of Instincto. Its basic concept that healthy food ought to be appealing made perfect sense. How could humans have known to eat their broccoli before the science of nutrition. How could any animal on earth survive if it was disgusted by food that was healthy. I didn't start a new diet for that, I just went back to w/e was convinient (not because i thought modern food was good, but I just needed to rethink my approach). I realize the group known as 'Instinctos' may not be respecting the type of proportions that were actually available (and what's this mess about Burger being a child molester, I cant find much in english about it. Do you know any details?) I read the steffanson article, plus evolutionary evidence that points to meat becoming a larger and larger part of our ancestors diets. Then I decided that I coudlnt think of any reason why cooking food would improve it nutritionally in any way, let alone why we humans would absolutely require specific foods we used to eat raw now be cooked. Steffanson was the last draw, it became clear thats what I needed to do (or atleast pretty close).
No particular disease prompted me to enter the RAF world. I've had acne, depression, fatigue, and a lighter frame than Id like, but my discovery of the truth about food merely came from trying to learn how to cook! I can feel the shortcomings of the modern western diet everyday (although not as extremely as many others. It must have been a hellish ordeal to race against the tide of insanity to save your own lives). I explained my views to my aunt and uncle when I was still at the Neanderthin cooked meat, nuts, veggies, and fruit point (not yet caring about grassfed). They were understanding but didnt take any interest in it. I haven't let them know about my intent for raw food, atlough I bet they are wondering about all that liver in the fridge! Its sad to see people in my family in such poor health, though not outright dying, although my aunt's father is suffering from congestive heart failure and diabetes , and yet she still feeds him cake! I will be moving out in a few months so its not a big issue, as I've had my first full time regular job for two months now. I can afford to feed myself, but not on wild caught fish at 20 bucks a pound! It's frustrating because the more I've learned, the longer it seems it will take to adopt a proper human diet. And in light of all I know its hard to stop at a fast food place for lunch, or even prepare a regular cooked meal with grain-fed meat. Though im not dying by any means, this is still the top priority in my life.
I went to a farmers market nearby and they didnt even sell meat products, though they sold cookies and baked goods! Agghh. The associations web page I found doesnt seem to mention meats at all, though maybe there is more than one association. I found a handful of grass-fed meat farmers in the US online, although the cheapest one sells everything frozen (where i got the liver from). Another cheap one takes weeks in advance, may be frozen too. I'll probly be ordering from Northstar Bison again. Mail ordering is annoying because of such long intervals and that expensive flat rate for shipping. Its expensive and slow to sample foods with it. It sounds like variety is definitely key, but I have zero other people I know in person to help me and I'm at a loss for how to find local small farmers. Ill keep searching for local fish/farmers markets, and just learn to be more patient.
The reality of how far gone 99% percent of the population is hasnt really sunk in yet. Here the government is telling us to get 40% of our calories from carbs, and that grains and beans should be the largest portion of what we eat. And how much people refuse to question, its maddening. I cant stand when someone tells me something simply cant be done or I will just have to settle for less. How can people let themselves get so fat and disgusting and not question the system? How can people resign themselves to crappy lives without putting up a fight? I guess whats so maddening about it is that I only discovered this by accident. It didnt occur to me to question conventional food wisdom. Thats what's so scary to me. Without blinking i downed several questionable antibiotics in hopes of clearing up my skin. Then i found an article, after discovering paleo, attributing acne to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and after taking about a dozen diff supplements i have noticed a strong and long lasting improvement.
Sometimes (after reading other historical and political resources) I feel like I've woken up from something akin to the matrix. The illusion wasnt all that great to begin with, but reality aint lookin too good either. With so many people plugged into it/their televisions and legal drugs - that's also discouraging. Even my only lasting friend from grade school, who is otherwise rather open-minded, shrugs off all these questions. My younger brother is eager to understand it, but he isnt a resource, rather someone I'll be able to help after I've figured it out. I guess i was expecting some great sensation after eating some liver, and I'd be able to eat more each time. I mainly bought a bunch of it because it was cheap and shipping was gonna be really expensive to buy just a sample.
Well thats my story for now, I can use all the intelligent friends I can get!
Chris
AnswerWell that's quite a story! You're very lucky finding all this out so young. It took me until the age of 26 to work out that my diet was to blame for my health and a further 3 years to find the correct diet. I can imagine how living in America with so many obese people around you might make you rather determined not to end up like them.
As regards the Guy-Claude Burger Instincto business, I'm rather glad that you found that out on your own. I had found this little detail about under-age sex a while back and had the fortune of understanding French almost perfectly. I didn't want to mention it to you as it's all a bit sordid and personal details about a diet guru's way of life normally don't have any relevance to their diet. In this case, however, it well may. The whole point behind Burger's Instincto theory is that you should listen to your instincts as regards raw food, and that eating cooked food numbs those instincts. However, he seems to have taken this idea to an extreme, believing that one should accept many other instincts and urges as normal, such as having sex with underage girls. He has been jailed for having sex with a 13 year old girl(I am not sure whether it was consensual or not, the website was deliberately vague). In other words he may have invented the diet's philosophy of instinctive living to justify his actions in other areas of life outside diet. This didn't exactly make me enthusiastic for his diet. Also, he has wrongly advocated against eating a high proportion of raw animal foods claiming silly stories about food poisoning(which are not my own experience). About the only thing in his favour is that unlike Aajonus Vonderplanitz, he never recommended drinking raw milk from another animal. That one little piece of advice from Aajonus has caused a number of people to give up their RPD diet due to undiscovered lactose intolerance.
I do sympathise with your situation as regards obtaining raw food. I've been to Sacramento once 12 years ago in July on a jaunt through California, Oregon and Washington State. I seem to recall (rather vaguely) that it was a very hot desert-like environment so it might well be difficult to get food there. All the farms seemed to be far away in Northern California. Also, it being nowhere near the coast, fish is going to be pretty expensive and most likely farmed if available at all!
I have read one or two messages on the Primal Diet Yahoo! group list from one or two other Raw Palaeolithic Dieters who live in Sacramento. The biggest Raw Palaeolithic Diet Group in California (and therefore the world) is Aajonus Vonderplanitz's Primal Diet(with many thousands of members). (He unfortunately has recommended raw dairy and lean muscle-meat a lot in the past as well as advocating eating too much in the way of raw carbohydrates such as honey, veggie juice etc. However, from his recent posts and books, he seems to be gradually turning towards a purist 100% RPD diet). Aajonus Vonderplanitz's e-mail address is
[email protected] and the Primal Diet Yahoo! Group is http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/primaldiet/. The latter Yahoo! group is closed to the public, you can't access the main site until you're a member. You will have to request membership from Jon C Fox at
[email protected]. You are expected to have read at least one of Aajonus's books before applying for membership and this group is not a place for criticising the Primal Diet -there were trolls in the past who advocated eating cooked food and other nonsense in order to deliberately disrupt the chatgroup, so this is understandable. If you haven't already read it, you can get Aajonus's 2nd book "recipe for Living Without Disease" on this website ( http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi)much faster than on amazon.com - the other book "We Want To Live" is a hopeless, rambling read and not worth the bother. You'll likely get more response from the Primal Diet list than the livefood one.
The reason why I mention the Primal Diet is that it's a perfect way for you to meet other RPDers at "Primal Potlucks" and talk about raw animal food sources and the like. Various Primal Dieters host raw food-gatherings at their houses every few months or so, where apparently you have to bring your own raw food dish, enough for 4 people. I don't know whether there are ever any around the Sacramento area, but almost every US state has at least one or two Primal Potlucks somewhere and California has the most, as Aaajonus Vonderplanitz lives in Malibu, California and visits the ones in his state from time to time. I believe that Aajonus has a complete list of RPD-friendly sources for the US and specific states/counties, which he will send to you, in exchange for a c.$15 cheque for the bureaucracy involved- I seem to recall that at the back of his 2 books he has a food-producer list request-form which you can fill in and send to him - that's probably the best way as he's a busy man. I also know that Jon C Fox hosts Primal Potlucks very often at his home in California, but have no idea if it's anywhere near Sacramento.Ask him re Potluck locations near Sacramento area or about acquaintances near there.
Even if you don't find anyone in the Sacramento area who's gone RPD,you definitely should visit your nearest Primal Potluck at the earliest opportunity. And if you can't find any decent local raw food sources at all in Sacramento, well you can always change your location - after all I've heard that 25% of Americans change their home-address every 2 years.
One last thing, I'm not exactly a great fan of supplements. Starting two years before my RPD diet I wasted a large amount of money on processed herbal supplements and vitamin and mineral pills and similiar non-drugs. They had a slight placebo effect which vanished as soon as I stopped taking them and once I gave them up 2 months into my RPD diet I did notice an improvement in my health.Whenever you put an unnatural processed substance into your body, the body releases extra adrenaline and diverts large numbers of white cells to the digestive system(the latter process is called digestive leucocytosis and doesn't occur when you eat something raw and unaltered). Just let food be your medicine. I'm glad to hear, though, that you don't favour antibiotics- at the age of 13 I had a violent reaction to an antibiotic - I remember that the nurse told me that it was impossible to be allergic to antibiotics- I have since learnt that this is utterly false.
Hope This Helps!
Sorry I didn't mention all this stuff earlier re Primal Potlucks. It just didn't occur to me as I live in the UK and have had to rely on my own resources to find raw food.
Geoff Purcell
London UK
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