Quote from wavygravygadzooks on March 10, 2023, 7:31 pm

For anyone wanting to learn more about why humans are facultative carnivores, check out Amber O'Hearn's work.  She's started a book (https://facultativecarnivore.com/) but it's not complete.  Miki Ben-Dor's work pretty much encapsulates everything on the topic as well, lots of interviews available on YouTube, and peer-reviewed publications.

Quote from tim on March 11, 2023, 4:47 am

This debate is clearly never going to end, hardly anybody else is going to read all this stuff, and I’m obviously not going to change your mind, so I’ll supply one last set of replies here and call it good.

Do as you wish. It's important that I keep breaking down your arguments to help anyone curious see how fallacious the premises of the carnivore diet really are. You lack conciseness, there'd probably be far more interest if kept your points succinct. 

-Modern humans do not digest raw plant foods well, that says nothing of hominid gut physiology pre fire.-

Our debate concerns the modern human and whether it can be defined as a facultative carnivore.  The physiology of past hominids is only of interest when trying to understand where and when certain traits in modern humans originated.  The modern human can easily digest raw meat due to nearly unrivaled stomach acidity.  The modern human cannot derive meaningful nutrition from raw plant foods (aside from edible fruit and nuts, which are, and have been, scarce or non-existent in much of human-occupied landscapes since Homo sapiens originated prior to agriculture).  There is now sufficient anecdotal evidence alone of modern humans surviving on only raw meat and/or cooked meat to clearly demonstrate that ability exists across ages, sexes, and ancestries.  The scientific evidence suggests that we’ve retained this ability over millions of years, that it dates to some of our earliest ancestry after diverging from the chimpanzee lineage, and that this characteristic most likely defined the trajectory of hominids up until modern agriculture. There is no omnivorous animal with such a stomach acidity, most likely because evolutionary fitness is only improved when the cost of maintaining such a level of acidity is overcome in animals that subsist entirely or almost entirely on meat.  You’re going to have to address this point head on if you want to keep arguing your position, but it looks like you don’t have a sufficient understanding of evolutionary biology to make sense of this.

Humans ate a raw omnivorous diet then transitioned to and adapted to a primarily cooked omnivorous diet. Just because cooked food adapted humans do not digest raw plant food well doesn't mean a carnivorous diet is optimal.

Human digestive physiology shows a mix of adaptations for both animal food digestion and plant food digestion because we are omnivores. You're cherry picking so much that you're even ignoring that humans produce far less stomach acid than most carnivores.

-Tool use isn't just pre modern human, it's pre human.-

So what?  Birds use tools too.  I said humans are unique in our complete dependence on tools for survival, not that we are the only tool users.  Yet again you dodged the essential details in my statements and distract from the line of logic I was using.  You do this repeatedly below.

You're not making any clear argument about how tool use made humans facultative carnivores.

-Pre human hominids consumed a raw omnivorous diet.-

Like I said before, I never claimed that humans or pre-humans didn’t eat plants, but that doesn’t make them omnivores.  Facultative carnivores do eat plants, that’s why it’s “facultative” carnivory, and that’s why you have to clearly define “carnivore”, “obligate carnivore”, “facultative carnivore”, and “omnivore”.  Your entire argument rests on the willing conflation of omnivores with facultative carnivores because you will not clearly state or accept a definition of those classifications.

You’ve also ignored yet again that there is no quantification of plant material in the description of the diet of that hominid from Northern Spain.  It only takes a single starch granule to leave traces of starch in the dentition…there is absolutely no quantification of how many starch granules were consumed by that individual, and therefore there is no indication how important starch was to the diet and survival of that individual, let alone the population from which it came or the species as a whole.  That individual could have gotten the one and only grain of starch it ever put in its mouth stuck in its teeth; it’s unlikely, but there’s no way to prove otherwise based on the methodology used.

More and more evidence of omnivory can be found but you will just keep denying it by saying that there's no evidence they ate plant foods out of choice rather than necessity.

-Why are you ignoring the quantity of stomach acid produced in humans which is far lower than that of carnivores?-

I didn’t ignore anything, the quantity of stomach acid is completely irrelevant.  Show me any shred of evidence that the quantity of stomach acid produced by an animal determines its classification as a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore.  The quantity of stomach acid produced is directly related to the volume of the stomach, the size of a meal, and the constitution of that meal.  Domestic cats produce lower quantities of stomach acid than lions…does that make them any less of a carnivore?  No.  This is idiotic, and you have yet again avoided the meat (hehe) of the matter…there is no omnivore with stomach acid as low as ours.

Humans on a diet high in meat produce far less per day after accounting for body weight. The total amount of HCl produced matters more for meat digestion than the concentration it's at when it's secreted by the stomach. It's harder to measure that though.

-A bear may choose to consume only animal products if given the choice but you've got no evidence that that would be advantageous for a bear health wise and survival and replication wise.-

If a healthy animal chooses to consume something that is available to it in its natural environment, there is every indication that it will be advantageous for it.  That is what instinct is.  You keep arguing this yourself when you say that humans choose to eat sweet things when available (which I don’t deny, but which doesn’t prove that humans aren’t facultative carnivores).  Additionally, in the absence of empirical evidence, there is still simple and valid logic to support my claim: fatty meat contains all the nutrition a brown bear needs, just like a human, and the bear has the physiology to capture and digest fatty meat, just like a human.  It is far far far more efficient for both a bear and a human to assimilate the requisite nutrients from fatty meat than from plant matter.

Brown bears, like humans, do not appear to derive sufficient energy from protein as cats do, so if their natural prey have a ratio of protein:fat that is too high (it often is, particularly with salmon) then they will be forced to eat carbs from berries or roots to shore up their energetic needs, just like humans.  Black bears, which tend to include more plant material in their diets than brown bears, have been shown to shift their diets to contain higher amounts of animal food when available, to the point where they are eating essentially the same diet as brown bears.  I would wager that both black bears and brown bears would thrive on meat only diets that contained the right ratio of fat to protein, based on the above reasoning.

So you acknowledge instinct as a determinant of if an animal is a carnivore or an omnivore which means you must acknowledge instinct in humans and humans show clear omnivory.

Aside from the benefits of glucose an omnivorous diet containing mushrooms, legumes, and vegetables is higher in thiamin, folate, pantothenic acid, vitamin C, manganese, molybdenum, potassium, magnesium and more. A mono diet of fatty meat doesn't support optimal health in humans.

You would wager? LOL.

-Children if given the choice and acting on instinct alone don't choose meat only so you are making a point for humans being omnivores.-

Yet…one…more…time…facultative carnivores opportunistically consume plant material.  They have sensory apparatus to steer them towards edible plant material and away from poisonous material because consuming some plant material is an adaptive advantage in the face of meat scarcity.  A child experiments with everything around them.  They put dirt and boogers and carpet and toys and animal hair in their mouths.  Some of them eat metal coins…is that indication that coins are good for them?!  Humans derive pleasure from sweet flavors because it reliably indicates energetic value, and outside of our modern zoo-like environment it pays to consume appropriate energy substrates whenever they are available, according to optimal foraging theory or similar concepts of energy economy, because you have no guarantee of your next real meal (i.e. animal product).

After just admitting that instinct determines carnivory or omnivory you are trying to explain away human instinct for omnivory. A ten year old child will always choose to eat carbs and meat, not meat alone.

-The easiest way to show that humans are not facultative carnivores is to look at the number of people that don't thrive on a carnivore diet.-

Show me a person who doesn’t thrive on some version of a carnivore diet that isn’t either (a) physiologically deranged for any number of reasons, (b) eating organ meats, (c) eating eggs, (d) eating dairy, or (e) eating some other ill-advised combination of things, including long-term imbalances in macronutrient ratios.

This is peak cultist thinking. It's similar to vegan perfectionist reasoning to explain away people that don't thrive on vegan diets.

-If we were facultative carnivores we would naturally choose to eat only meat or mostly meat and most of us would thrive in doing so.-

Most people who haven’t been brainwashed do include significant amounts of meat when it is available to them and comes in a form that is appetizing to them.  Culture and cult-like ideologies like veganism both have extremely powerful influence over the decisions made by individuals who might other behave more rationally by eating the meat their bodies are telling them to eat (Paul Saladino loves to cite the study where vegetarians/vegans were shown pictures of meat and the parts of their brains associated with the desire to eat something showed an abundance of activity, suggesting they wanted to eat the meat).  And apparently I have to repeat this yet again…FACULTATIVE CARNIVORES DO EAT PLANT MATERIAL, so when a human eats plant material, that does not indicate that they are not a facultative carnivore. 

Human desire for sugar is brainwashing? LOL

Children that don't care about what their society and what their parents say is good to eat do not choose to eat meat only if given the choice. You don't seem to understand the difference between omnivore and facultative carnivore. 

-Almost every human on the planet is choosing to consume an omnivorous diet and is producing more amylase than protease and lipase. The burden of proof is on you to show that that is unnatural. You haven't done that.-

So, now that I’ve established that the pancreas primarily secretes amylase only when the diet is primarily starch, you divert to repeating a form of the naturalistic fallacy (if something is “natural”, it must be good).  Humans are inherently part of a natural system; therefore, everything humans do is “natural”.  Thus, even the excess consumption of starch is completely “natural” when it arises organically from a free human’s decision, regardless of any detriment to the human body.  I would never argue that even modern levels of starch or other carbohydrate consumption are “unnatural”, but I would argue that they are often sub-optimal and detrimental, with abundant indication of that all around us – exogenous carbohydrates are integral to virtually every chronic disease known to man!  Diabetics are dying of “natural” causes – excess carbohydrate consumption.  The burden of proof has been met by the millions of people healing from metabolic disease and other disorders (and subsequently thriving) on ketogenic and carnivore diets, you just refuse to accept that proof for some reason.

You're just deliberately misinterpreting what I wrote. The word nature has many meanings. I simply meant unnatural as in abnormal.

-In the paleolithic athletic ability determined survival and replication so it's not fallacious.-

Your dipshittery is in plain sight here.  In the paleolithic, as in any period in the history of life, evolutionary fitness (of which successful reproduction is the primary component) is entirely determined by genetic persistence.  Athletic ability is but one of many variables at play in determining genetic persistence, by way of influencing survival and reproduction.  Intelligence and ingenuity are arguably much more important contributors to genetic persistence than athletic ability.  Ever heard the idiom “work smarter, not harder”?  Efficiency is the name of the game, and evolution is all about optimizing efficiency by balancing tradeoffs.  While athletic prowess does not inherently preclude intelligence or ingenuity, these parameters tend to occur in a relatively inverted relationship.  Athletic prowess tends to demand more energy via more muscle and physical activity required to achieve it.  If you compare a hunter that runs its prey down with a hunter that traps its prey, the trapper tends to be more energetically efficient.  Among humans, the trapper strategy requires more knowledge, ingenuity, and precision than the runner strategy.  Both can be successful but, all else being equal, the greater efficiency of the trapper’s strategy is going to provide an evolutionary fitness advantage.  All else is never really equal though, so ultimately the “brain vs brawn” tradeoff is going to be context dependent.  Thus, your blanket statement “In the paleolithic athletic ability determined survival and replication” is unequivocally fallacious.

I never claimed it was the sole determining factor but it was essential. A man that couldn't successfully hunt or fight was a man not likely to pass on his genes.

-Comparing glucose to a performance enhancing drug, now that is fallacious.-

How?  Saying so does not make it so.  That’s where all of your arguments go wrong…you say them but none of them are actually true.  If (1) carbohydrate availability to humans was low in the pre-agricultural landscape in which the majority of our evolutionary adaptations occurred (and it demonstrably was), (2) modern technology has artificially enhanced the ability for any given individual to consume endless quantities of refined carbohydrates without having to do anything to obtain it except click a button on Amazon.com, (3) consumption of refined carbohydrates in quantities not achievable without modern technology results in performance enhancement, and (4) there are detrimental physiological and psychological consequences of such carbohydrate consumption, including formation of addiction...how is that not similar to a performance-enhancing drug?

Because glucose is the the body's preferred fuel, it's not a drug. Do you understand what a drug is?

-You claim benefits of zero carb for athletic ability after stating that the best diet for athletic ability doesn't say anything about it being suitable for health and longevity.-

Good lord you’re a word twister.  I didn’t say “the best diet for athletic ability doesn’t say anything about it being suitable for health and longevity”.  I said “The diet that is required to win top level athletic competitions is not necessarily the same as the diet that is best for optimal health, reproduction, and longevity.”  They are not necessarily one and the same, and in this case they most likely ARE NOT the same.

You made claims for zero carb for athletic ability immediately after dismissing the idea of the best diet for athletic ability being the best diet for optimal health and longevity.

Completely separate, and in response to your idiotic assertion that MOST athletes would be on a carnivore diet if it were optimal, I pointed out some carnivore athletes are outcompeting others on a mixed diet…in the disciplines in which there is no advantage to be gained by putting yourself on a glucose drip, which is what is required to stay ahead of athletes on a fat-based diet because carb-based athletes are going to deplete their glycogen stores even faster than fat-based athletes due to their being stuck in a carb-dependent metabolism.

Some carnivore athletes? No reference to who, their history of success in competition when not carnivore, the importance of the competition. Worthless argument.

Ever heard of “bonking”?  I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me when I was competing on a carb-based diet.  Yet again, I’m speaking from an abundance of personal experience after winning a variety of cycling and XC ski races: a carb-based athlete requires constant refueling, which would have been entirely prohibitive in modern athletic events (and even moreso in paleolithic times) prior to the advent of things like goo packs and maltodextrin.  Tell me, how much experience do you have in athletic competitions using both mixed and keto/carnivore diets?  None?  I didn’t think so…

Why do I need experience in athletic competitions while eating a meat only diet to determine if humans are omnivores or not?

-There are many problems with your marathon argument.-

There’s nothing wrong with my argument, but there’s everything wrong your faulty interpretation of my argument.

-Firstly people in the paleolithic didn't run ultra marathons.-

I never said they did!  I was responding to your idiotic assertion that a diet required to win (not just compete in, but win) modern athletic events had any real bearing on what constitutes an optimal diet for health, reproduction, and longevity.  I was pointing out that a fat-based diet is more than sufficient for athletes not attempting to win “world class championships” in a modern, supported event in which carbohydrates offer a short-term performance advantage (like a drug, such as caffeine), which constitutes the vast majority of athletes on this planet.  And I was illustrating an example in which modern humans on a fat-based diet would clearly destroy anyone on a carb-based diet.

I never made that assertion. You haven't shown in any way that athletes perform just as well on a meat only diet as an omnivorous diet.

People in the paleolithic also were not riding bicycles, lifting weights on a metal bar, cross country skiing, rowing boats, wrestling on padded mats with headgear, punching each other in the face with padded gloves while a referee in a striped shirt officiated with a timer, throwing footballs back and forth between endzones, sprinting around dead-flat manufactured oval tracks in spiked shoes, or doing any of the other modern athletic pursuits that you are using to claim benefits from carbohydrate consumption.  Distance running/walking is one of the few modern activities that actually took place in pre-history, particularly as the megafauna diet out and humans were forced to adopt different hunting strategies required for smaller, faster game animals.

Strawman, doesn't relate to anything I said and proves nothing.

-Athletic ability for hunting and fighting other tribes was usually far more important for survival than the ability to run long distances.-

Maybe, but there is still no indication that a carnivore diet doesn’t provide the optimal nutrition for such circumstances.  Rugby is a relatively comparable activity and Anthony Chaffee has testified that he and some of his teammates performed much better on a carnivore diet than on a mixed diet.

The testimony of a few people means what? What actual data is there to back it up?

-Most world champion marathon runners come from specific African tribes where running long distance was selected for, meaning it wasn't strongly selected for everywhere else. Kalahari Bushmen do practice a hunting technique of running down their prey over a long distance but they practice a variety of hunting techniques such as digging up porcupine dens.-

For fuck’s sake, I never said all humans are natural champion marathoners.  Even though pretty much every major population on this planet has produced successful long-distance runners, that wasn’t even the point I was making.  The point was that any endurance activity (from sitting, to walking, to running, all of which are ancient human practices) is best accomplished on a fat-based metabolism when you don’t have goo packets in your pocket or a support table full of cookies and bagels and drinks every few miles.

No one said you did..

No, you're just asserting what you want to believe about a fat based metabolism.

Also, see my points above about running hunters vs trapping hunters…different strategies for different contexts.  People in northern climates don’t gain an advantage over prey by attempting to run them down like people in Africa because the peak daily temperature is typically insufficient to make the prey overheat in northern climates; thus, there is little selection pressure in some climates to become distance runners for that reason.  The Inuit and Yupik peoples certainly aren’t naturally built distance runners, and why would they be when they live in the arctic surrounded by a bunch of ankle-breaking tussocks?

-The Bushmen place great value over honey, they would certainly not choose to eat a meat only diet.-

Opportunism >>> Honey consumption.  Facultative carnivores in the wild are opportunists that don’t typically eat just meat when other suitable foods are easily acquired (infrequently and/or in small amounts), but it doesn’t mean eating only meat isn’t optimal for them.  Also, how do you know “they would certainly not choose to eat a meat only diet?”  You sound pretty sure of yourself without having interviewed any Bushmen over the past several thousand years.  Making shit up again are we?

Humans when given the opportunity to eat only meat never choose that instinctually. They always choose to consume starch and sugar with it. You admit that instinct determines whether one is a carnivore or an omnivore yet you ignore the instinct of modern humans.

-You state that weightlifters are winning competitions on carnivore diets after stating that the best diet for athletic ability doesn't say anything about it being suitable for health and longevity.. World class competitions? What have they won?-

How many times do I have to say it, I was countering YOUR stupid assertion that “if a carnivore diet was optimal most top athletes would already be on it.”  I never made an argument that carnivore diets would be optimal for winning modern, supported competitions, but I did provide an example in which they just might be optimal.  It doesn’t have to be “world class” to be a meaningful success.  I believe the few anecdotes I’ve heard were discussing regional US competitions, although I’m confident there are plenty of examples from other countries and probably higher levels of competition.

Why are you talking as though the opportunity for athletes to adopt meat only diets is recent? If meat only diets were optimal for athletic performance athletes would have always been on them.

-What about every other sport, especially sports like rugby and wrestling that demand both strength and fitness?-

Anthony Chaffee and Shawn Baker both played rugby!  They are the biggest proponents of a strict carnivore diet out there.  You walked into your own trap, dumbass…you clearly have hardly listened to anybody speak about their experiences on carnivore if you didn’t know that both Chaffee and Baker were rugby players.

The testimony of two people. Any data to back up a meat only diet increasing performance for rugby players?

-This is also fallacious as while I was saying athletes would choose an optimal diet for performance you are stating that specific athletes are winning competitions without knowing anything about those athletes including how they were performing before a carnivore diet.-

Ugh…your approach to arguments is to win by confusion and exhaustion.  It’s very difficult to argue with an idiot who can’t maintain a line of reasoning.  It’s like trying to debunk conspiracy theorists that pull crazy ideas out of their asses at a rate 100x faster than scientists can deconstruct them.

Tell me why we need to know any more or less about what carnivore athletes are doing or eating than mixed diet athletes…your comment makes no fucking sense.  If you’re implying there are confounding variables involved in the successes of carnivore athletes, aren’t you forgetting that as many or more confounding variables apply to mixed diet athletes too?!

I stated my point clearly. All these personal attacks aren't helping your case.

You think the evidence you have provided in this debate for superior athletic performance on a meat only diet is of a high standard? All you've done is drop a few names, we have no data about them.

-Glycolysis as a metabolic state. When one is not in ketosis. When not in ketosis most cells will use glucose, while some prefer fatty acids and ketone bodies.-

Re-read what you just wrote.  “When not in ketosis most cells will use glucose.”  No shit Sherlock.  What other state is there aside from glycolytic or ketotic?  Except for active digestion (which should not be the primary state of the body, but winds up predominating on carb-based diets when people are eating 3+ times per day) you are going to either be glycolytic or ketotic.  Therefore, if you are not in ketosis, you have to be glycolytic.  But the only way your body can remain glycolytic is through the constant intake of carbs.  Therefore, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that carbs are the desired fuel source when you are constantly eating carbs!  Fucking ridiculous.

I was explaining what I meant by glycolysis in a simple clear way because you didn't understand the first time.

When your blood glucose is elevated from eating carbs, the cells that can use glucose are going to use glucose because elevated blood glucose is toxic (unless you’ve also eaten fat along with the carbs, in which case the Randle Cycle is going to come into play and you’re probably going to wind up with a longer period of elevated blood glucose while your liver tries to send any excess glucose into adipose storage).  When you don’t have excessive blood glucose but your cells need energy, the ones that can use fatty acids and ketones are going to use fatty acids and ketones without issue BECAUSE YOU HAVE WAY MORE ENERGY STORED AS FAT THAN GLUCOSE/GLYCOGEN.  The only time this isn’t the case is when you’ve wrecked your fat cells by consuming a carb-dominated diet for years, or possibly by consuming a bunch of PUFAs.

You think elevated blood triglycerides isn't?

What point are you trying to make here?

-On a meat only diet energy does not just come from fat metabolism. Many cells cannot even use fatty acids or ketones. Red blood cells, liver cells, certain eye cells and certain brain cells cannot use ketones or fatty acids, they depend on glucose. On a meat only diet the body depends on gluconeogenesis and produces glucose surplus to the requirements of those specific cells. On a meat only diet glycogen replenishment occurs almost entirely from gluconeogenesis. When fasting most brain cells still run on glucose and after months of keto adaption the brain still runs on 25% glucose or more.-

For once, you said something accurate, and there is absolutely nothing detrimental or suboptimal about this process.  It is how the human body is designed to function.  The body was NOT designed to take in carbohydrates multiple times every single day.  I don’t understand how you can argue that gluconeogenesis is more harmful than spiking your blood glucose multiple times every day of your life with carbs, or dealing with the toxic byproducts of fructose metabolism, when all of the evidence points to elevated blood glucose as THE underlying cause of metabolic disorders that are running rampant across the world.  This is the most hilarious aspect of the modern dietary science regime…they find carbohydrates implicated in every chronic disease known to man, and yet they continue to push a carbohydrate-based diet.  Imbecilic.

The fallacy here is that you are implying that protein and fat digestion and metabolism is totally free of any downsides. Glucose is very easy to digest, absorb, transport through the blood and to utilize. All fat contains some PUFA which oxidizes easily. All animal meat and fat contains cholesterol which oxidizes easily. All animal meat and fat contains oxysterols which are harmful. Transient high blood triglycerides following digestion is not without its downsides. Gluconeogenesis is a metabolically expensive process compared with starch digestion.

-Carnivores are much better at gluconeogenesis than us, cats thrive on lean meat, they don't need to eat fat with meat like humans eating a low carb diet do, cats can more easily replete glycogen reserves on a meat only diet.-

So fucking what?!  WE’RE NOT CATS.  We require fatty meat.  Cats require raw meat, we can survive on cooked meat.  Cats lick their assholes, we wipe ours with tissue.  WE’RE NOT CATS.

Obligate carnivores have glucose based metabolisms. When cats are given the choice they choose food lower in fat. Why did cats evolve to favour protein over fat if fat is more optimal than glucose? 

-For humans it's far more advantageous in many ways to consume starch to replete glycogen reserves and it provides an advantage over carnivores relying on gluconeogenesis which is a much more inefficient process than obtaining glucose directly from food.-

Where is your evidence for this?!  You’re making shit up AGAIN.  “Far more advantageous in many ways...”  HOW?  Show me a study that even demonstrates a correlation between increased gluconeogenesis in humans and worse health outcomes.  There is without a doubt no study that shows causation.

I've explained the physiological reasons clearly.

-Most raw food meat only dieters fail to thrive and they end up eating a % of cooked food or abandon the diet altogether.-

I don’t think there are many records of people eating entirely raw meat diets in the modern era to draw on in the first place, and I know you don’t have good evidence to back up your claim here.

Raw Animal Food/Instincto/Aajonus Vonderplanitz type diets never took off and don't have many long term adherents. Just the fact that a raw meat diet is unappetizing says all you need to know.

-We have been consuming cooked food for hundreds of thousands of years, it makes little sense to deny significant adaptation to it.-

I never denied adaptation to cooked food!  I only pointed out that we have the ability to obtain sufficient nutrition from raw meat alone thanks to our gastric system.  Of course there’s a reason people usually cook their food.  But you also have to wonder why so many cultures still incorporate different forms of raw meat in their diets.

We also have the ability to obtain nutrition from raw honey, raw nuts and raw fruit. Just because we can get significant nutrition from raw meat doesn't say anything about if we are carnivores or omnivores. We're now processed cooked food starch based omnivores.

-Most raw wild game meat is tough, carnivores have suitable dentition for tearing it into chunks and swallowing it. We lack that dentition, it makes no sense to argue we are more suited for that than the cooked omnivorous diet we are so very clearly adapted to.-

Seriously, this same stupid argument AGAIN?  Tools tools TOOLS!  We don’t need carnassials because we developed sharp-edged stones and metal knives.  Go listen to Bill Schindler, his work is easily accessible even for hare brains like yourself.

We can eat raw meat. Our dentition is not built for it.

-Prior to agriculture? Even today there are extant hunter gatherer groups in South America, Africa, Sri Lanka and Indonesia for whom agriculture has never been part of their life. Far more of the world was pre agricultural in the 1800s and anthropologists were able to study these groups.-

Yes!  Prior to agriculture.  As in, the time period when humans had abundant access to large mammals with a ton of fat on them.  As in, the time period before humans were forced to take up carb consumption or go extinct.  All of your examples come from a time period when most groups did not have sufficient access to large game and had to figure out how to ingest more carbs or die trying.  We didn’t lose our ability to hunt or digest meat since the advent of agriculture, and we only gained minor adaptations to plant consumption during that time period, the VAST majority of which are derived from exogenous tool use…our physiology has hardly changed at all.  Why is virtually nobody allergic to meat but tons of people are allergic to all manner of plant compounds?  Why do plants cause people so much more gastric distress than meat?  Why is the modern carnivore diet still a thing if it was so ill-conceived?  Vegans stick to veganism because it’s an ideology.  Carnivores stick to carnivore because it makes them feel good.

So many problems with this paragraph. Firstly Africa never lost all of its large mammals. Secondly agriculture still hasn't arrived for certain cultures. Thirdly farming was not necessary to prevent extinction. Fourthly nobody is saying plant foods don't have any downsides.

-Prior to Australian colonization "bush bread" was a major source of calories for Aboriginals. Large amounts of wild grain including wild millet were harvested throughout the year and bread was baked up to three times per week. Wildlife was everywhere, aboriginals ate most of it including snakes, lizards and grubs. Seafood including crustaceans and shellfish that could simply be gathered by hand was plentiful on the coast. Yet they still went to great effort to collect wild grain and process it. Like every other hunter gatherer group they raided wild bee hives and dealt with getting stung or falling from heights in order to obtain honey. When macadamia nuts were in season they would camp near the trees and eat mostly macadamia nuts for weeks at a time when they could have been hunting game instead. In times when more animal fat was available than could be consumed they didn't stop gathering plant foods.-

See above comments.

-When men were hunting megafauna what do you think women were doing?-

Who says women weren’t hunting megafauna too?  Dumb and sexist, you’re a real charmer.

-Anyone that didn't hunt was involved in gathering and processing plant foods.-

Maybe.  Or child care.  Or dwelling maintenance.  Or clothing development.  Or processing/preserving meat.  Why wouldn’t idle humans want to gain some insurance against starvation by gathering plant foods that require minimal energy to collect?  Facultative carnivores in the wild eat some plant foods.

They wanted to eat them because humans are omnivores.

-You imply that humans instinctually are satiated if they have enough meat and animal fat in their diet but there's no evidence for this.-

Yes there is! Every person who’s ever eaten a carnivore diet!  Which doesn’t include you…maybe you should try it and find out for yourself.

You're saying carnivore dieters have no desire for candy or cake?

-Any child that just eats what they want to will always choose to eat sweet and starchy foods even if they can eat as much fatty meat as they want to.-

I won’t say there’s zero evidence for this, but I’d like to see what evidence there is.  I’ve heard a number of carnivore parents describe how their children thrive on a carnivore diet and they don’t go looking for sweets.  I’d like to see whether the desire for sweets/carbs is limited to cultivated and processed foods, or whether this applies to wild plants.  I’m pretty sure a satiated kid is not going to want a wild tuber or wild grain, but I could imagine them eating some of the sweeter fruits.  This still does not refute my point that humans are facultative carnivores that eat plant foods because, having not evolved in a modern zoo with grocery stores around every corner, they are hardwired to insure against starvation.

Evidence? Every child is evidence.

-"But even if most humans had low carbohydrate intakes in the last Ice Age it doesn't mean that that is optimal for modern humans and it certainly doesn't mean that a meat only diet is optimal." You ignored this point.-

I didn’t ignore it, I just deemed it unworthy of a response.  And still do.  There’s nothing I haven’t already written that doesn’t apply to this comment as well.

-You're getting hyper specific about terms that don't have well defined boundaries:

"Obligate carnivores are those that rely entirely on animal flesh to obtain their nutrients; examples of obligate carnivores are members of the cat family. Facultative carnivores are those that also eat non-animal food in addition to animal food. Note that there is no clear line that differentiates facultative carnivores from omnivores; dogs would be considered facultative carnivores."-

I’m not getting hyper specific, I’m using functional and established definitions whereas you had not previously provided a single definition for anything.  I don’t see who authored that online text you provided or when it was written, nor are there citations in the text for the statements made.  There are, however, other texts that do contain citations and known authors who specify a difference between facultative carnivores and omnivores.  Even if there really were no clear distinction between the two, that doesn’t make your argument right and mine wrong: we would either both be right or both be wrong and this debate would be moot.  But that’s not the case, there are functional distinctions between facultative carnivores and omnivores.

They are saying no clear line, they aren't saying no difference between the terms.

-Dogs are facultative carnivores, they descend from wolves, wolves do eat small amounts of plant foods and can get more from them than cats. I'm happy to accept that wolves could be defined as obligate carnivores though.  Humans are clear omnivores.-

Cats eat grass.  They’re obligate carnivores.  Wolves are obligate carnivores whether you accept it or not.  Humans are facultative carnivores whether you accept it or not. 

Wrong. Humans are omnivores whether you accept it or not.

-Omnivory is not defined by whether some animal food is needed or not, some omnivores need animal food some don't.-

Gooood goddddd man.  I never said otherwise!  I said carnivores are defined by a dependence on animal foods.  And I said humans are dependent on animal foods (if not taking modern supplements).  Ergo, humans are carnivores.  Were you lobotomized or something?

Wrong. A species can be omnivorous but dependent on at least a portion of the diet consisting of animal foods.

-You're just speculating according to your bias.-

I laid out a sound logical explanation that is no more speculation than any of the bullshit you’ve been spouting according to your own bias.

-Also, gluconeogenesis is a vastly more metabolically expensive way to get glucose than just consuming starch.-

Is it though?  Why don’t you show us the math on that one?  Oh, you haven’t done the math?  Didn’t think so…

-Again you're ignoring modern instinctual eaters aka children and you're ignoring data on hunter gatherers. People have a sweet tooth, people enjoy different flavours, people choose diets containing a balance of carbs, fat and protein. You're ignoring the fact that hunter gatherers ate certain foods because they understood the health benefits of doing so. You're ignoring the role different members of the tribe played in food acquisition. You're ignoring the fact that hunter gatherers normally had plenty of time and energy to go about getting the foods they were seeking, they had on average large amounts of free time, hunter gatherers were not constantly fighting for survival. You're ignoring things like how food relates to social status and how collecting something like honey or truffles might win the respect of the tribe.-

LOLOLOLOLOL.  I’m not ignoring anything, but you’re ignoring that FACULTATIVE CARNIVORES EAT SOME PLANT FOODS.  I’ve already addressed the rest of this crap elsewhere.

You don't understand the difference between omnivores and facultative carnivores.

-There were indigenous groups farming corn and beans.. Many groups had a lot of plant foods in their diet. In the north they extracted a lot of maple syrup. None of them were eating a meat only diet. Again, you don't have evidence Inuit were healthier.-

Post-agriculture!  See my other comments.

You've got no evidence Inuit were healthier than non farming groups further south with plenty of plant foods in their diet.

-"Omnivores can have the ability to live on a highly carnivorous diet but it's usually unlikely to be optimal for them." -This statement is based on what?  Your uneducated opinion of wildlife biology-

--No, it's based on the fact they are omnivores and not facultative carnivores. Diets that differ from that which an animal is adapted to tend to cause problems, that is the whole crux of your argument about why humans should eat a meat only diet.--

In some cases, omnivores fall short of being facultative carnivores because they lack the ability to obtain sufficient animal product on which to survive.  There are going to be a wide variety of physiologies and digestive capabilities among omnivores, but something like a pig is highly likely to do well on a mostly or entirely cooked meat diet if that diet is provided for it.  The body of a mammal contains everything that another mammal needs to be healthy.  As long as the digestive system can accommodate the amount of animal product required to meet nutritional needs, there is little reason to expect that some omnivores couldn’t eat a carefully formulated carnivorous diet supplied to them and be just as healthy or healthier than on a mixed diet.  That being said, they evolved as omnivores so there’s no inherent reason to expect them to excel on a carnivore diet…I’m not sure why you even made that statement in the first place, because humans are clearly facultative carnivores and it shows in the benefits gleaned after switching from a plant-based diet to a carnivore diet.

You've got no evidence pigs or humans would experience better health or longevity on a meat only diet.

-Bears produce their own vitamin C.-

So what?  Bears are bears, humans are humans, cats are cats, dogs are dogs, we have very different adaptations to our environments.  Rabbits eat their own shit to get more nutrients…does that mean they’re not well adapted to eating plants?  I D I O T I C

Humans benefit from a vitamin C intake higher than that found in meat.

-Polar bears may still not be perfectly evolved for their diet, the fact their livers are so loaded with vitamin A they kill anything that eats just a piece of them may be a red flag for that.-

They’re well enough adapted that they live for decades in the wild in some of the harshest conditions on earth and don’t die from Vitamin A toxicity all the time, and they manage to kill adult seals that are wicked hard to catch.  It is completely naive to say that something is not “perfectly evolved” because the process of adaptive evolution never results in “perfection” as measured by humans.  Natural selection can only “mold” a given set of genetic inputs to a given environment by culling genetic lineages.  Because the environment is constantly changing, and because the genetic inputs are very limited to being with, the genotypes and resultant phenotypes produced via natural selection will never be a “perfect” match to their environment.  Photosynthesis is hardly perfect (it’s highly inefficient), but it’s resulted in virtually all the macroscopic life you see on this planet, and humans have not managed to make it any more efficient despite plenty of efforts to do so.

If you want an example of an animal that is poorly suited to its ecological niche, it’s the giant panda.  They are so poorly adapted to their wild diet of shitty vegetation that they have abysmal rates of reproduction and have been headed for extinction ever since they became vegetarians.  If they had much predation pressure they’d have been wiped out a long time ago.  Pandas are to brown bears what vegans are to meat-eating humans…they eke out a weak existence only in the absence of predation.

Nit picking semantics again. Their gut physiology doesn't look as adapted to carnivory as many other carnivores.

-Compared with carnivores like big cats their digestive system has anatomy that has some omnivorous traits.-

Yeah, because they came from a lineage most recently of facultative carnivores, and before that, omnivores.  Just like giant pandas have carnivorous traits despite eating vegetarian diets because their ancestors were facultative carnivores.  Just like humans show “omnivorous traits” despite being facultative carnivores because our distant ancestors were omnivores.  Your points are never demonstrating what you think they’re demonstrating because you lack any real understanding of what you’re saying.

Humans have always been omnivores.

-Humans may be able to partially adapt relatively quickly to different diets including low carbohydrate ones but that doesn't make them optimal.-

I never argued that rapid adaptation to any diet makes it optimal.  Alternatively, you cannot show that rapid adaptation, in itself, to a new diet makes that new diet sub-optimal.  Regardless, humans have demonstrably been facultative carnivores eating primarily meat for millions of years, so a carnivore diet is not “new” to humans.

Humans have been omnivores since day one, you can't show otherwise.

-From the start of the Neolithic on, much of the population may have had insufficient meat in their diet. The upper classes could chose what to eat and they chose an omnivorous diet just as their paleolithic ancestors who were not enslaved chose an omnivorous diet. Given the choice people normally choose a diet that meets their protein requirements with the balance a mix of fat and carbohydrate to provide energy.-

I’ll say it again: culture has a large role to play in what people decide to eat.  The consumption of white bread was once a marker of social status, for example.

Humans have always had culture. Humans have always been omnivores. Humans have a strong instinct to consume starch and sugar.

-Why are you still ignoring that fact that no human group has ever been known to be entirely carnivorous? Even the Inuit? Even nobility throughout history that could eat whatever they wanted? Even children that are given the option of what to eat?-

I’m not ignoring it.  To the contrary, I’ve explained WHY that is the case among hunter-gatherers.  It’s because wild animals are opportunists and will make use of the resources at their disposal.  Humans and their ancestors have had the ability to digest certain plant foods going probably all the way back to our common ancestry with chimps, and it wouldn’t make sense for them not to make use of those plant resources, no matter how meager, when the net outcome is beneficial (i.e. when it’s easy to acquire and does not keep them from hunting the animal food on which they actually depend).  AND I’ve explained why this occurs among children and adults in modern societies: (1) we share the same hard-wired instincts as hunter-gatherers to eat whatever is available that qualifies as food, and (2) we are subject to brainwashing whether it’s culture or cults.

No. Humans have a strong desire to consume starch and sugar even with plentiful meat and fat available. Human hunter gatherers normally had plenty of free time. When not at war they usually lived lives of ease. We've never preferred an all meat diet.

Either way, FACULTATIVE CARNIVORES TYPICALLY EAT SOME PLANT FOODS.  I don’t know how they lobotomized you considering how thick your skull is…

Because they want to, because we are omnivores.

-What do you think the RDA is based on?-

LOL, seriously?  The RDA is based junk science, politics, bribery.  It’s based on a sick population eating terrible diets.  It’s based on the same manipulative fuckery as the food pyramid.  It’s a joke.  It’s completely wrong.  It’s essentially unattainable without supplementation.  And people on carnivore diets are the ones who are finally making this absolutely clear to anyone naïve enough to think the RDA is a useful guideline.

Have you read the science behind the RDA for vitamin C? If so, what do you disagree with?

I've read the science on the RDA for both vitamin A and vitamin C. I've explained on this forum what I think is wrong about the RDA for vitamin A. The RDA for vitamin C is much more clear cut.

The funny thing is is that many used to criticize the RDAs for being too low providing a similar argument to yours.

-The minimum requirement for vitamin C is 10 mg to prevent scurvy but that's not the optimal intake. Inuit ate certain foods high in vitamin C such as whale skin. There have been multiple cases of carnivore dieters getting scurvy. Lack of scurvy does not mean one is getting optimal vitamin C intake.-

Again, how do you know people on a carnivore diet would have better health with additional Vitamin C?!  There is no evidence, there wasn’t when you said it the first time and there isn’t any now.  You’re just spouting speculative bullshit again.  BULL   SHIT

You've got no evidence carnivore dieters are getting optimal vitamin C intakes for health and longevity.

-Longevity is not associated with a low carbohydrate diet.-

Is association causation? No.

Association implies causation.

Is the lack of association indication of the opposite? No.

Is longevity associated with a higher carb diet? No.

Is every low carb diet the same? No.

Is a low carb diet the same as a carnivore diet? No.

Is there any controlled study of longevity on a carnivore diet? No.

Are you completely full of shit? Yes.

-We are omnivores.-

…and the record keeps spinning but the noise isn’t any more intelligible.

-Convoluted and confused lies and nonsense. If anyone wishes me to respond to anything specific written here please let me know.-

Yeah, that pretty much sums up all your responses.  Dismissive because you lack any real understanding of biology or science in general.

Get it?  Got it?  Good.  I don't know how someone like Bart Kay deals with this level of idiocy every day, it's exhausting.  You can have the last word, I'm not going to waste another keystroke on this…you're only going to dig yourself into a deeper hole anyway.

This whole debate has been me pointing out the obvious and you trying to deny it. It's a lot more exhausting defending falsehoods and attacking truths than the other way around.

Quote from Sarabeth on March 11, 2023, 9:34 am

I have read this exchange with interest, and enjoyed all but the ad hominem attacks! I think that it is very important to talk about this stuff, especially when we disagree, and compare our experiences, and investigate the literature, and question our experiences...since not in our lifetiemes is it likely that the medical establishment will help us out in these endeavors.

I have found that adherents and gurus of every diet dogma ignore those who don't do well on their particular diets. I know many people who have found short-term help with carnivore diets, vegan diets, high-protein diets, low fat diets, high carb diets, and everything in between. What I find most interesting are the rare stories of people who have found long term healing using specific modalities (usually, many different diets, or else a diet that adapts as needed, as the individual heals in his or her unique way). But there are always, always outliers, and I have argued this with Sally Fallon to no avail: when WAPF doesn't work out for people, they leave the forums, and nobody talks to them anymore; therefore, WAPFers know that WAPF works for everyone. When veganism doesn't work out for people, same thing. When the carnivore diet doesn't work for somebody, same thing. Whenever a diet isn't working for somebody, the adherents and gurus of that diet always jump in to say, "That's because you aren't doing it properly!!"

I think it's much more interesting and useful to identify WHY it isn't working, and move on from the dogma pretty quickly, with due respect to the vehement vegans and enthusiastic carnivores. I have done both of those, plus many other diets, with dozens of variations over dozens of years, and this forum - and the liver-healing, low-A plus all the other nuances-discussions - are the most interesting in terms of helping those of us who still haven't reached 100% but can't quite lose the faith after all these years. 🙂

Our gut flora is so important to include in all these discussions about macronutrients, and we know almost zero about it...but it certainly must be a large part of why humans can flourish on diets with all sorts of macronutrient ratios, as well as some of the most suboptimal "diets" ever contrived by corporate food processors. I know many, many women who do not thrive on carnivore diets or many other low-starch diets, and my own experience backs this up. I can tell it's a give and take between the challenges of starch digestion and yet my biome has certainly evolved some level of need for and adaptation to these starches. It is also very different to discuss optimal diets for health MAINTENANCE vs. optimal diets for healing unique health problems. There is such variety in both, but the specific needs of the latter do not match up necessarily to any specific diet from the former. I once heard it said that when people are healthy, they're healthy in the same way. And when they are sick, they are sick in myriad countless ways!

I do think that vegan, carnivore, and any number of very restrictive diets have therapeutic usefulness. What I appreciate about many of the theories discussed on this forum is that they are adaptable depending on the challenges facing each individual...and I wish more was known about the specific usefulness of various diets. That's where certain practitioners' clinical experience can be so helpful, and I wish there were any more than one or two who have thought about this vitamin A stuff...

Okay, muddled thoughts but gotta go to family matters!

Quote from Hermes on March 11, 2023, 2:48 pm

Muddled thoughts? Clear as the sky on a sunny afternoon. Thanks for your response, @sarabeth-matilsky!

Just a tangent, I notice a lot of forum members here who I'd describe as perfectionistic. What's that all to do with vA? I don't know.

Quote from lil chick on March 11, 2023, 4:35 pm

@christian I would bet that the perfectionism thing has to do with being able to force yourself to eat what others have told you is "right" instead of doing what feels good!  😉

I "should" eat all these organic pumpkins I grew!   ("oh god not pumpkin again!   says everyone around the table, and the intuitive ones hide it under the plate).  I "should" take this cod liver oil!  etc.

Quote from Andrew B on March 12, 2023, 2:08 am

@christian I'd definitely self describe myself as a perfectionist. Even OCD when playing golf at a high junior level. A lot of stress to achieve at exams. My journey has been to stop finding work as a hard thing to endure but to find something I enjoy as well. I think stress lowers choline and I'd say stress is the biggest factor in build up of Vitamin A for me at least. When I got psoriasis the first possible sign of Vitamin A toxicity with hindsight I'd gone through a terrible period of 18 months in a job I didn't enjoy, then made redundant and lost my home of 6 years because the landlord wanted his house back. Hope there's no typos 🙂

Quote from Andrew B on March 12, 2023, 2:48 am

Very well written @sarabeth-matilsky ! I support the right to experiment and was wanting to see how the @wavygravygadzooks experiment turned out on Vitamin A reduction before Dr S booted him out of LYL. That said I do favour a balanced varied diet because I love cooking, baking and eating. I love macaroni and cheese, beetroot chocolate cake, steak and kidney pie, ice cream and lychees after a hot curry, lamb and mint sauce with roast potatoes, cantaloupe melon with macadamia nut oil, banana pancakes with honey and dark sweet cherries and a bacon and eggs type fryup. And it's all the more satisfying when it matches with excellent health.

What is doing the detox still slightly puzzles me ? Is it the choline or the fibre or both ? Choline to get it out the liver and into the bile and the fibre to actually remove it. Replenishing the choline with eggs is a lot easier than eating a lot of meat and I did try to eat loads of meat. I guess I didnt enjoy it without adding too much passata. It does seem like doing the choline consumption step first then allows a large increase in fibre and it feels like I'm dumping tonnes of vitamin A. I'd love a scientific experiment to confirm it but I'm not doing that precisely enough.

Another aspect that was touched upon is that to get out of a health hell hole we might need to do something that's briefly against our principles. I'm not going to judge anyone for that even the ones taking antibiotics and medicinal drugs because they've limited their options through lack of knowledge, money and time and being swayed by marketing. Eating more meat than I normally do probably helped my skin stop peeling and I moved on to a more moderate amount. Eating eggs being something a vegan might need to do in this Vitamin A reduction context to get sufficient choline. Or supplement ? That doesnt sit right for me always reaching for supplements. I'd rather recover with food. The amount of supplements being consumed and the expense when absorption isn't fixed isnt going to translate into a Vitamin A reduction programme catching on for poorer people who might gain the most in longevity from the Vitamin A reduction. Indeed it's those bloody Vit A supplements handed out like sweeties that may be contributing to the problem.

Quote from Hermes on March 12, 2023, 12:40 pm

@lil-chick

Interesting and discomforting to think about being forced to eat something particular as a child. That might indeed lead to a sense of what others think being more important than my taste and dislike. Obviously, this is simplified and probably more similar experiences outside of the context of food need to be present to develop perfectionistic tendencies. I believe it tells a child: Whatever you are is not good enough.

 

In my case, I've been very much free of being force fed anything in particular. Actually, my mother really enjoyed cooking and baking and for birthdays each child could wish a specific meal for this day. She enjoyed when we enjoyed the food. What's interesting, my special relationship with food dates back to at least age 11. It's when I first started to have a phase of eating cereals for lunch instead of what my mom would cook (food as a way to separate from your parents?). It was tolerated.

 

For me, food is connected to comfort and a sense of belonging. We had fixed meal times. There was both love and attention in food, and it was always good. Other kids would come to my house and comment on it too. In high-school, I had some of the boys of my class come over all the way to my place to enjoy the lasagne my mother made. Anyway, I think I place too much value on food, whereas there was very little emotional support. My mother was very practical and straightforward (MBTI: an ISTP). And she would discuss things with me that would be better talked about with your spouse.

 

I wouldn't describe myself as perfectionistic rather having high expectations of myself. And this also goes all the way back to being a kid. It would really hurt me when I got a bad grade back. It would be like: I'm a failure. Eventually, I was a good student in grade school, but then transferred to the Gymnasium, which prepares you for Uni. It's way more demanding, and I quickly learnt I couldn't keep up with the others. I was just average but wanted to be really good. Anyways, most of us are by definition average, and yet everyone of us has special talents, characteristics and so forth. Being average doesn't mean you're not unique. Anyway, sometimes I wish I had pursued a more practical path, like learning a trade. I have much more humour about my shortcomings these days. I also don't idealise stellar academic performance and intelligence anymore as I used to. Yeah, most of my life I've felt as if I wasn't smart enough, particularly being smart was important to me. I assume it's related to a role being ascribed by the family system. I was the smart one. But guess what, it's all a matter of how you compare yourself. At the Gymnasium, I was a mere mortal. The only thing that stood out was my drawing skills. Anyway, performance is not all in life, and I've come a long way to realise this. Life is as much about play, fun and good relationships with friends and family. You're ego isn't going to help you lead a good life, maybe you might climb the corporate leather, but will it make you happy? I put my priorities somewhere else today. And don't care about your status anymore. What's more important, are you a decent human being?

Quote from Hermes on March 12, 2023, 12:49 pm

Quote from Andrew B on March 12, 2023, 2:08 am

@christian I'd definitely self describe myself as a perfectionist. Even OCD when playing golf at a high junior level. A lot of stress to achieve at exams. My journey has been to stop finding work as a hard thing to endure but to find something I enjoy as well. I think stress lowers choline and I'd say stress is the biggest factor in build up of Vitamin A for me at least. When I got psoriasis the first possible sign of Vitamin A toxicity with hindsight I'd gone through a terrible period of 18 months in a job I didn't enjoy, then made redundant and lost my home of 6 years because the landlord wanted his house back. Hope there's no typos

@andrew-b

Fascinating that you played golf at a competitive level. I only once hit the driving ranch when I was 18, everyone who turned 18 that year was invited by the town to visit the local golf course, sort of a present to the newly grownups. It's where I learnt one thing, how hard it is. What do you think contributed to your perfectionistic tendencies? And how have you learnt to ignore your feelings that were guiding you when you took up this unsatisfying job? I think it's terrible when people have to bend and turn to fit into a box they all along know they don't want to fit in. I believe it's marvelous how we can adapt and change according to situations, but being outright in denial about your own core truths is a terrible idea. I think I've pushed myself way too hard in my life (to be something I'm not). It's about time to enjoy it more and find pleasure as you suggest.