From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: VEGETARIAN DIET
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:48:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Sep11.214800.6522
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <wefrXIe00WCXQBf0YN@andrew.cmu.edu> "David F. McWade" <dm3o+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>No, it isn't.  If I eat fruit with other foods I usually get headaches
>and other body aches.  This seems to conform to Fit For Life reasoning. 

It certainly does.  I wonder which came first?

>Whomever wrote this does not understand Natural Hygeine sufficiently.

Whoever wrote this has forgotten when to use "who" and "whom".

Listen, if you get headaches from eating fruit with other foods (god
help you if you include melon!) don't do it.  But this experience isn't
universal or even predominant by a longshot, nor are the putative
"reputable studies" which Sternlight refers to either "reputable" or
"studies".  They don't agree with the scientific understanding of
digestion, of which there is a lot, all of it I would have imagined
uncontroversial (until now!)  I'm sure there is a lot more to be
learned about digestion, but it is extremely unlikely that we're going
to encounter something really radical which would revolutionize our
understanding of it.

>>>5. Eat only fruits and fruit juices until noon.
>I started to do this and feel much better for it.

Fine.

>Most progressives are usually considered "crackpots" by people immersed
>in mainstream thought, who do not question the things which our culture
>takes for granted.  

Ah, the "They laughed at Einstein, too!" argument.  Listen, for every
Einstein, there are billions of Joe Blows whose um, eccentric ideas have
justifiably disappeared.  Being outrageous isn't a guarantee of validity.

>Up until about 20 years ago, gays and lesbians were considered by the
>vast majority of "experts" to be abnormal and pathological.

What does this have to do with anything?  I'm not saying that "experts"
are correct all the time, I'm saying that you have to be rigorous about
making claims for efficacy of a regimen or therapy, and they have to be
viewed critically.

>The analogy holds true.  Our medical culture and opinion, wholly
>Western, is affected by (and affects) the status quo.  The two
>perpetuate each other, which is why change is so slow.

That's true; you can see that in a number of areas, not that you
can't say that about other "systems"--wouldn't this fit with the
systems of Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine?  Of course it would.
That is, you're describing a characteristic of human social institutions.
Our job is to to the best we can within this.

>Natural Hygiene
>has been around many times longer than our mostly backwards medical system.

Hmmmm, then it must be correct.  Is that what you're saying?  Listen,
there's a lot of superstition out there in all sorts of fields, even in
mainstream medicine, usually in areas where it doesn't really matter
much.  But at least fields which use the scientific method have a way
of winnowing these out.  Without this, regimens, therapies and drugs
exist in a morass of uncontrolled observations of an even more bewildering
set of variables.  You can't tell what causes what.

There's no scientific evidence that food combining is necessary or
particularly desirable.  If the Diamonds started a religion, perhaps we
could look back from 2,000 years in the future and imagine:  how quaint
is their custom of eating fruits alone.  Or perhaps one might imagine a
mythical taboo arising over the "solitude of the melon." And it would
be hard to argue about that, because such a religion wouldn't be making
objective claims about health (perhaps such a regimen could be thought
to help entrance into the next world, an untestable proposition.) But
the Diamonds aren't demi-gods, and they're making health claims about
the results of their food combining recommendations.  That's why it's
appropriate to ask if such claims are valid, and to scrutinize the
evidence offered for this.

I mean, maybe I'm just a materialistic technodweeb, but I am less likely
to believe someone's recommendation to follow their entire program if I
encounter something in it that is blatantly out-of-phase with the way we
understand the body to work.  Maybe this is exactly what attracts others
to their program.  So be it.  Or maybe it just doesn't matter very much
to them.  But they might as well know that it's based on untrustworthy
principles.  

>(This will have to suffice for a real proof).

It's not a proof (not that we're dealing in such things) but it's not
a particularly good argument for whatever it is you are arguing for,
either.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer