Re: Week 5 of Fuhrman diet. A bit disappointed...

Hi Chrisb1,

It's good to have you back.

Hopefully you've seem my other post on this subject (//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1913351#i) where I mentioned the specific issues I had with Dr Fuhrman's comments as mentioned in an article concerning diabetes.

I've taken part in an ongoing discussion on the INHS discussion forum and others as well over the last 2 years about what constitutes our optimum, natural, healthy diet. I've also read quite a number of viewpoints from various Hygienic and non-Hygienic experts and, in my opinion, the weight of evidence is planted firmly in the frugivore diet. There are some excellent testimonies as well from 30+ year low fat, raw vegans that although not scientifically conclusive, do bear consideration.

I read with interest, and not for the first time, Dr Bass' article Fruit - Friend or Foe as you kindly linked to. The last time I read it, I was new to this subject and was not able to pick up some of the fallacies of his arguments. The most glaring one on this occasion was the number of times that fruit Sugar was blamed for disease conditions while overlooking the inclusion of oil and fat in the diet.

Dr Bass mentions "In the 1990's and beyond, nutritional authorities began to write on the dangers of high sugar, and later, a high carbohydrate diet." Yet, the medical community had already acknowledged in the '70s (something they'd hinted at since at least the '30s) that a high-fat diet was to blame for conditions such as atherosclerosis and diabetes. The fats clog up the interstitial fluids preventing Sugar from being absorbed from the bloodstream and practically starving the cells of fuel. You could say that it's dangerous to consume Sugar as part of a high-fat diet but it would be more correct to say that a high-fat diet is dangerous.

Other points that deserve mentioning are the problems he encountered while mono-eating of acid fruits for long periods of time. Apparently some communities of humans exist solely on bananas for most of their lives and I suspect that might work but not acid fruit. Similarly he found troubles with extended juice diets which we know to be unhealthy as well. Apparently he didn't have the wealth of knowledge available to us these days.

And finally, his mouse experiments seemed to be poorly founded. (I'm no scientists but...) Check as I might, I could only find one reference for the mouse dietary and that was a Wikipedia article stating that they were "herbivores consuming any kind of fruit or grain from plants." Dr Bass put a cage full of mice on a strict fruitarian diet and noticed that although they ate some fruit, they weren't satisfied so he added fresh corn-on-the-cob and avocado. Keeping them on this diet, he found that by day 3, the mice had resorted to cannibalism. By this he decided that fruitarianism wasn't a valid diet for humans because we would have severe deficiencies within 2 months!

Yet, people thrive on a strict fruitarian diet for years, decades even with the addition of green salads, nuts and seeds and I've yet to note any cases of cannibalism! What I think he proved was that mice are not frugivores and that in a survival situation, it's mouse eat mouse!

Having said all this, I hear you when you say that you fare better with your diet modifications. It may be that for many of us, we've gone too far along the non-fruitarian road to be able to return to it easily if at all. I'd hate to think that my survival now required me to kill and eat animals or support the cruel industry that supplies the various animal products.

I hope that this answers your question adequately.

Regards,
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