Reply to Chris Wanjek's LiveScience Article

[Guest guest]

Hi all, and Helen,

 

Here begins my reply to the LiveScience article. The article can be

found in full at:

 

www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060704_bad_raw_food.html

 

My reply is very long and is divided into two. In the first division,

I explain/reveal the big geological/biological picture that human's

are a part of on earth, in order that the sense in my rebuttal to the

article, in the second division, is more clearly seen.

 

I cover a lot of ground, and some belief systems are challenged. I

have spent enormous time and effort over the years securing the

information and experience that have allowed me to make the

observations and conclusions in my rebuttal. Many fields of

knowledge are involved, including specific sciences in geology,

evolution, biology, history, physics, chemistry, and engineering. Due

to length concerns, I've greatly reduced explanatory material,

supporting facts, evidence, observations, and logical analysis.

 

The development of human civilization on earth is extremely

interesting and its correct overall understanding will help a person

to realize the state we civilized humans are in today, what can be

done about, and if anything can be done about it by us as individuals

or as a whole.

 

I will post the 2nd division in successive future days, in three

parts. The second division, almost three times as long as the first,

directly answers and commments on the article, paragraph by

paragraph, statement by statement.

 

I found it difficult to reply to the article without developing a

bigger picture since the article was layered in false belief systems

interspersed with quite sensible facts and erroneous facts, all mixed

up.

 

With the above in mind, here goes:

 

 

Hi Christopher,

 

I read your article " The Raw Food Diet: A Raw Deal " and I'd like to

reply to it.

 

The article does little to shed light on healthful living practices.

It doesn't develop accurate understanding of a sensible raw food diet

for it is embedded in a morass of widespread beliefs that today keep

the civilized world in a virtually complete state of confusion

regarding the diet that is normal and natural to the human species.

Many facts and considerations are missing that need to be revealed.

 

An accurate judgment on a sensible raw food diet in our civilized

world requires 1. a wide-scoped study of many pertinent fields of

science, including fields that describe earth's geological

development and its life's evolution, or 2. a disencumbering of

oneself from the mountains of intellectual mayhem that pervades the

establishment view of raw food combined with a sense-guided immersion

in a correct natural diet while taking cues from the wild sense-bound

biological world.

 

Before replying, farther below, to the article's points, and as a

development of point 1 above, I summarize and make comments on

earth's and life's development over the last 100,000 years.

 

Unagendized, unbiased, and careful study of geology reveals that the

mechanisms that govern geological development of the earth's surface

is the driving engine of not only the geology of the planet, but the

life on the planet as well. I.e., the earth drives biological

evolution and give it its face.

 

In short form, the periodic movements of the earth's crust cause

geological disruptions and climate zone displacements to the life

that lives upon the crust, and the various species that are adversely

affected must either move, adapt, or die.

 

I won't go too deeply into the geology and physics. A great read on

it is Charles Hapgood's " Path of the Pole " .

 

In brief, the earth's entire crust is subject to cyclic displacements

due to the build up of ice on polar continents which creates

tangential forces on the earth's crust that then cause the crust to

shift as a whole unit over the extremely pressurized and high

temperature rock layer 100 or so miles beneath the earth's surface.

If one imagines the crust as the skin of an orange, it would be like

the orange's skin slipping over the orange's interior.

 

Rock, which consists of mineral crystals, undergoes phase changes

when under extremely high pressure and temperature and will adopt

liquid properties while still retaining solid properties. In a band

approximately 100 miles down, where pressures are unimaginably

immense, a solid layer with liquid properties will allow the crust

above it to slip over it like a shaft in a bearing if certain surface

forces build up. The huge ice caps at the polar continents, after

becoming large enough, cause a tangential force which results in the

crust shifting. The cycle repeats itself as the ice sheet melts and

a new ice sheet builds on the new land masses at the poles, should

they shift there. The crustal shifts occur approximately every 20 to

30 thousand years, take 500 to 2000 years to occur, and involve

maximal crustal movements of from 2000 to 3000 miles, all approximate

figures.

 

An affected species can move back into climates that suit it if the

land mass that it lives on is big enough or is connected to other

landmasses that still have suitable climates. For land-based

creatures, an island land mass spells trouble. The creature that is

able to adapt and survive the climate disturbance gets to live on.

The creature that cannot move back, or that cannot adapt, heads for

extinction, slowly or quickly. The uncountable extinctions of

history show that adaptation is often not possible, even as

adaptations (among other things) inspire speciation.

 

Evolution is the process of change for biological creatures. Those

species we see on earth are those creatures which have slowly changed

and/or adapted successfully, and thus diversified while making it

through the uncountable crustal shifts that have occurred on earth

over the previous 100's of millions of years (likely billions).

 

A species' longevity is directly related to how stable its

environment was over the ages, and how it was able to consistently

adapt to changes that occurred in its environment, when/if any

changes occurred. Ocean species, because the larger ocean is

interconnected all over the world, tend to exist longer than land

species.

 

Study of biology, evolution, and earth's history reveals that now-

modernized humans evolved in the tropics and lived there

successfully, sustainably, and harmoniously until very recently,

perhaps about 200,000 years ago. For the human species to evolve

successfully into the particular anatomical, physiological, and

biological creature that it is today, a period of millions of years

of stable living in the tropics was required.

 

However, over the last 200,000 years or so, the land mass that the

now-modernized human was living on was shifted out of the tropics

towards the poles, slowly, forcing these species members to adapt or

die out. The human tried to adapt by using its brain to study, then

manipulate, nature in order to secure the food, warmth, and security

of life that it once had taken for granted for millions of years.

 

Biology reveals that the human species, a member of the primate

order, is a frugivorous creature as are most primates, if not all.

The term frugivore is a classification for a species that is

anatomically, physiologically, psychologically and biologically

suited to eat primarily fruits, with some variation in diet. In other

words, biology, along with many other sciences, show us that the

tropics are the human species natural, normal home.

 

Due to successive crustal displacements into non-tropical climate

zones, the now-modernized human was forced to pick up a habit of

eating foods other than fruit in order to survive. It is important to

note that abundant fruit grows wild all year long in the tropics. The

human species was also forced to develop methods to keep warm in a

climate that was slowly becoming cold. Again, it's instructive to

note that the tropics are always comfortably warm for humans, all day

and night, all year round.

 

The end results of these newly developed habits and methods of living

are what we know today as science (study of nature), technology

(manipulation and development of nature - i.e., application of

science), and civilization (the result of our species' intense

practice of the previous two). So it's science, applied science,

civilization. Nature, attempted conquering of nature, abnormal growth

and function.

 

A biological species expands to the size that its food (energy)

supply supports. When humans started eating other substances

differing from their normal fruit diet, they expanded their food

supply, or in other words, their energy supply. These other

substances needed to be cooked to make them available as digestible

food for the frugivorous human. Humans began extensive eating of

grasses, herbs, and other animals. The sciences of agriculture and

animal husbandry were invented. This culturing of plant and animal

life was the beginning of culturization, or civilization.

 

The investigation and conquering of nature began innocently as an

emergency measure to avoid extinction, and slowly progressed until

today where we see it totally out of control. It's now called

progress, advancement in technology, scientific development, and

modern civilization, and it's accepted as normal and natural, but

only to humans with their societal short-term memory.

 

The human being is evidently not adapting successfully. That the

adaptation of using its brain to figure out how to manipulate nature

is a failure is admitted by the unsustainabilty of its modern ways

and the depredation that it puts upon not only itself but the

environment that supports the human species. There's an appearance

that humans are living successfully outside of the tropics, but it's

only an appearance.

 

Modernized humans wear rose-coloured glasses, so to speak, and

taking them off, one sees that:

 

1. the tens of thousands of species of wild organisms that eat the

raw food fare they evolved to eat suffer virtually no disease.

Humans, and their small group of domesticated animals, who eat foods

abnormal to themselves, suffer disease.

 

The situation is like feeding a gasoline engine diesel fuel. It'll

run, but not that well, and it'll show early signs of wear and tear

and will malfunction. These effects are called symptoms of abnormal

use. Feed a human its natural, normal dietary fare, and the human

will be free of disease like a gasoline engine is free of breakdown

so long as it's fed the right fuel. A well kept engine easily handles

the stress of a hill climb, for its entire life. A poorly kept engine

fed improper fuel barely handles the stress of the hill climb and

breaks down prematurely. Stress doesn't kill, for it is normal to

life. Abnormal, unnatural, unhealthy habits kill.

 

2. disease is widespread in civilized humans. Overpopulation of the

human species on earth is astronomical. To get an idea of how bad it

is, think of 7 billion mountain lions. Mountain lions (cougars) are

comparable in size to humans, though probably a lot more earth-

friendly.

 

3. humans cannot live naturally in temperatures below 80 degrees

Fahrenheit. In the temperate and polar climate zones, clothes are

necessary, and it is extremely difficult or impossible to sleep at

night without covers. All species are born naked and either remain

so or grow fur/hair. To maintain warmth by producing artificial heat,

clothing, and housing, the civilized non-tropical human has developed

habits that lead to great environmental and biological destruction.

 

4. as a whole, the civilized human being acts as if there are no

other creatures on the planet, and their actions certainly are

leading to that. All other organisms are mostly considered to be food

for humans. No plant remains unabused, and most are not uneaten. Not

even the enormous volume of creatures in the sea are safe from human

predation.

 

5. strife is so common within the civilized human race, it is not

even considered abnormal. No other animal species destroys it own

kind in savage country-wide wars, let alone global wars, or makes war

upon every other living creature around it except for the ones it

makes its " pets " .

 

6. complicated, ever-expanding governments keep the ever-growing

masses of humans in order. There are cities paved over jungles,

deserts, snowfields, water bodies, grasslands, and forests. Infants

are assaulted the moment they are born, forced to behave as civilized

humans, and drilled endlessly in intellect factories (schools) to

learn what they have not learned naturally through evolution.

 

Many more similar observations can be made.

 

It is evident that something is amiss. Are the above observations all

signs of normalcy of action within the thousands of other animal

species on the planet? Is it normal for the human species to be

acting in dissonance with the thousands of other biological animal

species on the planet? The only unbiased answer that makes sense is

no.

 

Biological laws, like the physical laws that govern all existence and

of which biological laws are a special subset, govern all life on the

planet, and no life form is ever exempt from the laws of life.

Physical and biological laws brought all life into existence,

including humans, and they bring all life forms out of existence,

including human life, according to circumstances.

 

Noting the workings of these laws and how civilized humans have been

doing in recent millenia, it is quite evident that the civilized

human population is on a ride to self-extinction, a delayed response

to an earthly geological event that the modernized, civilized human

is still unsuccessfully trying to adapt to. The time span of the

extinction may be measured in the tens of thousands of years, but

that is a minute in geological and/or evolutionary time.

 

In a nutshell, the human species is a frugivore that evolved in the

tropics, was recently moved out of the tropics, and attempted to

adapt by, among other things, picking up the cooked food eating

habit. It entered into diseased living as a result, since it's slowly

long-evolved anatomy and physiology could not keep pace with the more

rapid geological event that moved it out of the tropics.

 

The human investigated and manipulated nature, and started the

sciences (studies of nature). One science lead to another as more

problems arose because of the effects of the first science.

Agriculture tried to solve the problem of lessened availability of

wild growing fruit. A study of climatology, astronomy, and

measurement systems was required alongside of the development of

agriculture. Disease from eating abnormal agriculturally derived

foods lead to the development of medical science in a vain attempt to

avoid the symptoms of eating incorrectly. Political science tried to

solve the problem of overpopulation and human strife that accompanies

overpopulation due to an increased food supply. All sciences followed

out of the initial forced study of nature. And so on, ad infinitum,

until we have today's smorgasbord of " ologies " and a belief system

wrapped around each one.

 

The application of science always contains within it artful

expression - using imagination to express new thoughts and ideas, so

art is included in the above.

 

Today, the civilized human sits scratching its head over its health

problem. The problem is very complex. Nonetheless, the human can use

science and an observation of the still wild biological world to find

its way back to sensical living.

 

Keeping all the above in mind, I'll say that a raw food diet

appropriate for the human species is the only way the civilized human

can find true health, personally or as a full group living

harmoniously and sustainably on the planet, just as all other wild

living creatures on the planet can only enjoy their fullest state of

true health by following their appropriate raw food diets.

 

That diet which is suited for each species as determined by that

species' past evolution, is the normal and natural diet of the

species. Any other diet is abnormal and will lead to disease when

followed by the organism. Disease is abnormal to successfully

evolved, and hence successfully adapted, living creatures. Disease is

normal to creatures following abnormal and unnatural living habits.

 

I hope the above has helped set up an understanding that can be used

to reflect on the raw food subject and its importance in the life of

the human being. Hopefully the above will help develop a better

perspective on what might be a correct and wholesome diet for the

human being as the rest of the article is considered.

 

 

.....to be continued, with Part II, the actual rebuttal to the article.

 

 

I hope the length is taken well, Robert