To me, most of this makes sense. I’ve listened to some of Doug’s tapes. I’ve
read the 801010 book. I’ve even lived this diet on/off in the last year. I have
had some very positive results and not so positive results.
But I am still a sceptic at heart. I have to know HOW something works and not
just that it does. My intellectual curiosity longs to be satisfied. I am a man of
science. Luckily so is the main proponent of this lifestyle. Or so he claims.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have any real credentials or qualifications to back
that up. This not so important for me but it is to the scientific world. Thus I
would like address a few things. Hopefully I have your attention by now..
First, lets define pseudoscience:
Pseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be
scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not
adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or
plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status.
Yes, we are our own scientists, our own experiments.
Yes, this SEEMS logical and ‘common’ sense.
Yes, we can arrive at the conclusion that we are a specific species, and like all
species we should adhere to a species specific diet. (the problem here is that
we have evolved as a species from other primates although we are still 98%
similar, that 2% could be very significant).
However, since we are not biologists or physiologists, we simply cannot use
these claims to back up our so called self-experiments. That just
unfortunately doesn’t qualify for SCIENCE. Sorry Mr. Fry, Mr. Shelton, Mr.
Graham.
But why do so many skeptics and very intelligent people and very healthy
people either dismiss this all as fuzzy nonsense and wuwu or just say that it is
completely unnecessary to eat this way? Not one mainstream scientist or
author seems to take this seriously. That causes deep concern for me and I
must admit forces me to question the claims made by Doug Graham and other
natural hygienists.
Here’s something interesting on Human evolution I found on Wikipedia:
“Richard Wrangham, a primate researcher and professor of anthropology, has
stated that eating cooked food is most “natural” for the human digestive
system, because the human digestive system has evolved to take advantage of
the easier processing cooking allows. Wrangham believes that cooking
explains the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller digestive tract, smaller
teeth and jaws and decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred roughly 1.8
million years ago. Wrangham suggests that raw meat and vegetables could
not have provided the necessary calories to support the normal hunter–
gatherer lifestyle. He states that “no human foragers have been recorded as
living without cooking.” However, he does not recommend using the past as a
guide for what is healthy today, pointing out that in the modern world, eating
too many calories is more of a problem than eating too few, making harder-
to-digest raw food potentially more attractive.
Other anthropologists oppose Wrangham, stating that archeological evidence
suggests that cooking fires began in earnest only 250,000–400,000 years
ago, when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear
across Europe and the middle East. Two million years ago, the only sign of
fire is burnt earth with human remains, which other anthropologists consider
coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire. The mainstream view
among anthropologists is that the increase in human brain-size was due to a
shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to the consumption of
meat. “
Doug, you call yourself conservative with your diet (in opposed to being made
out to be radical) and you also seem to be a very smart and critical thinking
man. How would you address these issues when in conversation with people
seeking information about these topics? Are you 100% confident where you
stand on the subject?
Is there a possibility that eating this way 100% is simply not necessary.
I would like to leave you dear reader, with the following thoughts:
We are primates. Why shouldn’t we eat like other primates? Then again,
although physiologically/anatomically very similar (but not quite), we are not
the same. We have evolved. Why did we evolve? Our brains. We did
SOMETHING different. It’s not agreed as to what that something is YET. I
suggest we don’t become too arrogant about knowing things about nature and
nutrition that we simply do not know. Yet. We can only theorize. Hypothesize.
That’s all.
Thanks for your time.