Kiwi

Things are controversial, for one thing, because people like the idea of continuing their bad habits and being able to employ some quick fix to avoid the consequences. It's difficult for people in our culture to accept the idea that in nature, there are no loopholes.
    Ultimately, although there are a million different ways to transition to a raw food diet, there IS a diet that is optimal for human beings, and by that I mean ALL, all, all human beings, not just some with a certain blood type. Because there are literally a thousand factors that determine how a person will transition, you'll hear a million different versions of what people are doing and what they recommend. The end goal is the same, though. If it were true that members of the same species can have distinctly different nutritional requirements, we'd see this in other species, and we don't.
    I'd say in discerning truth you need to take a fresh look at everything you've taken for granted as truth, such as that the Japanese are to be emulated for their 'long' lifespans. I did a little research on this the last time it came up and it turns out Japanese males live something like (going on memory here) an average of 78.8 years and females generally die in their early 80s. Is this something to be emulated? They eat a slightly better diet than the typical American, and they live slightly longer. That's all. It's not controversial, it's not even something a person who is interested in optimal health should take note of.
    Chocolate IS bad for us. Is it possible to know this without a study to 'prove' it? Of course it is. Anything that has to be processed to death and have sugar added to it to get past our sentinels isn't human food.
    Shelton died of disease because although he had the greatest grasp of the principles of health of anyone I know of, he apparently had problems applying these in his personal life. He didn't die because he followed the rules, he died because he broke them.
    Regarding your grandmother and all the other examples that get cited of people who flouted the rules and seemed to get away with it -- there's no reason to believe that human beings aren't supposed to live as long as any other species on earth, which is typically 7 times the age at sexual maturity (ASM). Of course the ASM is open to debate, but even if you use a conservative number like 18, that's still 126 years. That's what we should be averaging. Our grandparents who ate junk, spent their last 15 years in the old folks home and died at 95 didn't get anywhere near realizing their potential. We all know others who weren't so 'lucky', who died at 70 after a couple decades of battling degenerative disease, so by comparison our grandparents seemed to have it pretty good. For me, neither scenario is acceptable.

(from Raw School forum)

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