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The paradox of my experiment with the Primal Diet is that while it was undoubtedly triggered, at least in part, by the fact that I was living surrounded by people who were pursuing it to one degree or another with some degree of success, the most dedicated and extreme practitioners were definitely socially isolative to a degree even beyond the dysfunctional raw vegan.

There was a high degree of paranoia about anything to do with the toxins of modern life, sometimes a bravado'd machismo of exhibitionist consumption of raw meat (which grosses out a lot of people who eat meat themselves)and a general intense avoidance of anything that might be 'toxic,' from soap to high-powered blenders (AV recommends the osterizer-type with a narrow mouth jar screwed on, which he says reduces oxidation.)

This is certainly one way to deal with the problem of a toxic world, but it sharply curtails one's active participation in life and compassion for other people.

A problem that I see with the approach is that it is so entirely reliant upon Aajonus. I applaud Aajonus' efforts to promote the availability of raw dairy products and awareness of environmental toxins in conventional foods, but perhaps because he hardly sells any products, his consultations are very pricey indeed. Whilst he claims that each individual's consultation is finely geared to their own specific needs (which he discerns partly by taking a history, partly by iridology and partly by intuition), comparing different people's recommendations with what I received myself showed me rather little difference, which diminishes the credibility.

It should also be noted that dramatic healing crises are often experienced in response to the heavy onslaught of raw animal products and green juices. I knew people who were sick for months at a time. In some cases, there was an official diagnosis of parasitic infection associated with raw meat, but Aajonus would tell the person that in fact they were working toxic mercury out through their system and needed to keep doing what they were doing and were getting cleaner and healthier. Starts to sound like 'justification by faith.'




Whilst a healing crisis can be a powerful thing, practitioners of the diet can expect to be laid out for months to achieve it, and are so thoroughly warned off any other form of medical intervention that they are solely dependent on Aajonus for what to do.

In other ways, too, the diet can become pretty much a full time job, between sourcing and preparing all the foods, being sick a lot and actually eating them! He has you eating every 2-3 hours (which actually turns out to be good for me, just not in the quantities that he prescribes) and often the food that you eat needs to be prepared right then.

To speak a little of my personal physical experience, my experiment was pretty brief: I entered a relationship with someone who is not interested in special diets or remotely into raw foods, and moved far away from the area.

I ended up eating cooked food again, including some animal products, and am gradually finding my way back to live foods through my experiences.

In some ways, it has been very useful for me to have this experience, to see how my body really does respond to certain products rather than just ruling stuff out arbitrarily (as I had been doing before). I discovered that raw eggs and raw goat dairy felt good to me, but cow dairy, even raw, does not at all. I discovered that I am drawn to organ meats but not muscle meats (and now, heading back towards live foods and seeing that I'm a 'fast oxidizer,' that makes sense because of the need for purines). When I was doing the diet initially, I had a huge upsurge in energy, and built muscle in a way that I had never been able to do in my life. I put on weight, some of which was probably a good thing, having been emaciated for many years (although I'm no longer sure I buy AV's contention that everyone needs to carry excess weight in order to be shielded from toxins), but more than I needed to or was comfortable with, and had a hard time (and an unwelcome return to anorexic thinking) losing it.

The most valuable thing about being inducted into omnivory in this way was the converse of what I mentioned at the beginning about social isolation and lack of compassion.... I feel much more connected to animals now - and even to plants too - and have much more genuine compassion and understanding of why other people choose to eat the ways that they choose, which makes social interactions where food is involved easier, no matter what I'm choosing to eat.

As far as AV's diet goes, though, grateful as I am to him for his work on environmental/ecological issues, I am not ready to join the cult, nor to take on the kind of full-time job of feeding myself that he offers.

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On the other hand, many rawists eventually tire of the hassle of explaining their diet, and/or lack the social skills to handle inquiries about their diet, due to immaturity in some cases, and lunch-identification--the process of identifying with one's lunch--in other cases.

(See Functional and Dysfunctional Lunch-Attitudes on this site for details.) When that happens, the usual result is that the rawist avoids social events that include food--i.e., most social events. In that situation, the diet can be very socially isolating, and can even promote a negative mentality: "me (raw)" vs. "them (cooked world)," which can promote further isolation. Even worse, when your diet controls your social agenda and social life, then the raw vegan diet is (figuratively) eating you, when it should be the other way around!

In this situation, rawism and raw dogma can be social impediments, and this can be a disincentive to raw (i.e., anti-seduction). One of the things that I personally found very welcome when I discontinued 100% raw and resumed eating some cooked food was how relaxed--and pleasant--social events became, and how much of life I was missing by avoiding social events because the food (vegetarian, by the way) was "cooked."
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Basically, you should set the social agenda, and not surrender that part of your life to the dictates of narrow, simplistic dietary dogma.

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MacReady
Another site questioning UM goes down. Andrea Cione's blog has been removed:
[sergebenhayon.blogspot.com.au]

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corboy
Ultra rigorious diet can change and in some cases limit social horizons.

Think how many of us have to modify our social patterns if we find we must go on a diet for heart health or diabetes control, or weight loss - the extra mental energy it takes to figure out ways to deal with temptation when at parties, etc.

But at least for medical and athletic diets, one doesnt have the weight of the cosmos on one's shoulders.

But if a diet has a salvation dimension, and worse, if rules for this special purification diet are constantly being changed by the leader who advises the diet, this adds an added dimension of stress.

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MacReady
Another site questioning UM goes down. Andrea Cione's blog has been removed:
[sergebenhayon.blogspot.com.au]

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COncerned Partner

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MacReady
Another site questioning UM goes down. Andrea Cione's blog has been removed:
[sergebenhayon.blogspot.com.au]

[sergebenhayoninvestigation.blogspot.com]

hi MacReady, never fear Andrea is here. I dont know what happened but found it with a little searching.