I've been reading this truly amazing free book that provides an excellent scientifically-sound (IMO) hypothesis for how we came to be left or right handed instead of ambidextrous like all the other animals of earth. But more importantly is the way it brings together a wealth of scientific research that supports our biologican and physiological existence as frugivores as opposed to carnivores, herbivores, insectivores, graminivores and definitely not omnivores. It also puts to bed the "meat gave us bigger brains" and "cooking made us human" myths that are, for some reason, being heavily pushed of late. (Mere coincidence, you think?)
Regardless of what your viewpoint on any of the above, this is an excellent read and I highly recommend it to everyone who has a scientific leaning and an interest in our heritage.
Many (if not all?) of the scientific papers referenced in the book are available in full at http://leftinthedark.org.uk/files#General_Interest.
(This could take me some time to work through but if I have a spare moment I'll hack through it piece by piece!)
Interesting post NH.
I wanted to ask if this concept of frugivorians as referenced within the book by Tony Wright, is exclusively fruit and fruit only? and/or does this include completely raw and/or veggies as well?
A quick reply to say that my original post was wrong. The books available to purchase are actually the 2nd Edition just like the free version. Apologies for confusion.
There seems to be an acceptance that we ate fruits and vegetable matter.
Here are a few notes that I made on the book with page references. Some notes are from reading the reference material or independent research.
Page 30 - Millenium Man of Kenya shows that bipedalism was in use 6 million years ago by an agile climber who walked on the ground and ate fruit and vegetable matter.
"At the University of Toronto, David Popovich has been studying the micro-nutrient content of the wild vegetation consumed by gorillas. He has found that much of the energy and nutrient value that gorillas are able to derive from such a diet comes from colonic fermentation. Their studies on human subjects have shown that humans may also be able to rely on colonic fermentation. Thus, a diet consisting of substantial quantities of fruits, vegetables and nuts - no pasta or starches - will provide adequate protein, B-12 and amino acids (the building blocks of protein). Gorillas and chimpanzees have little trouble digesting cellulose thanks to the presence of the ciliate Troglodytella in their intestines. However, chimps and gorillas in captivity begin to lose their Troglodytella when they are fed cooked food. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that humans lost their intestinal cilia when they started cooking with fire." http://fruganlife.com/index_files/Page894.htm
Page 44 - Bacteria in human colons proved quite efficient at fermenting the fibre of fruit and vegetables. The microbial populations fermented some three-quarters of the cell wall material, and about 90% of the volatile fatty acids that resulted were delivered to the blood stream.
Page 45 - our gut microflora are very sensitive to different types of dietary fibre. We are very efficient at processing vegetable fibre from dicotyledenous sources (flowereing plants like fig trees, carrots and lettuces) but are less so from monocotyledens (grasses and cereals)
Page 48 - The sugar in wild fruit tends to be rich in glucose and fructose compared to cultivated fruit that has been bred for its sweeter tasting sucrose content.
ciliate Troglodytella (abrassarti)? Has anyone gone the logical next step and tried adding this to their intestinial culture while eating the associated diet?
I particularly noted the fat finding/development and absorption observation. This has always been the puzzle for me. Where did the nutrient absorption for fat soluble nutrients come from?
Re: the TC FRY post. My biggest concern with many of these typed of observations is that REALLY KNOWING what actually happened may not be possible. Perhaps it is lack of X caused by no Y but being able to prove it is another thing. It may have been extraneous: a not observed or found factor.
The above discussion about fruit diets illustrates my point. When did c T.abrassarti first show up as being important in fruit/veg digestion and do we know if humans happily host this MO?
Well done with your fast. Thanks in particular for the excellent demonstrated preparation. Someone needed to do that on the site. Well done. My one question has been that some recommend detoxing bowel,liver and kidney before hand. Did you consider this? Or were you confident that your lifestyle was leaving you in good enough shape to fast easily?
I'm not aware of any testing with abrassarti but my take on this is that you don't mess with the inner domain. If you think it's having trouble coping, then water fast and then feed it the foods that it is biologically adapted to in the form that nature provides it. During a water fast, the gut flora hibernate and when you start refeedng, they resuscitate and all being well come to a natural balance which holds true throughout the digestive tract. If abrassarti is required to digest the green vegetables that undergo no digestion in the stomach, then it will be there or it's task taken by another.
I agree with you about the TC Fry conundrum and the main point is that no-one should be saying, "This was the cause of his demise" because there were so many factors and variables.
I cannot find ciliate Troglodytella via the search of the document. Can you point me to a page?
But on the Left in the Dark subject, I was just reading in Shelton's Food Combining Made Easy his comment about eating fruits, "Man, the archtype of the cheirotheia, should develop those frugivorous habits which are common to his anatomical structure, and from which he has largely departed in the course of time, due no doubt in large measure to his wanderings since he left his edenic home in the warmer regions." I think that is a nice summary of the overall theme of Left in the Dark! :-)
(cheirotheia doesn't pop up in searches but might be a misspelling of cheirothesia which refers to the ordination rights of lower christian clerics. If so, I don't understand the meaning of the phrase!!!)
As far as detoxing bowel,liver and kidneys, I've had two years of intense indoctrination in Natural Hygiene to even consider anything other than eating wholesome food and water fasting as healthy practices. The golden rule of NH could be said to be "Don't interfere with the body's inner domain"
No internal domain issues here but I wish to challenge your view.
Tell me if I am wrong but I see something important here: very important.
As I understand things none of the natural biota humans normally have produce EFA’s. We cannot make our own EFA’s and need to source all our EFA”S via diet. This article is the first time I have ever read a report that there may be a natural system that allows us to produce EFA’s. If this conjecture is true it gives a logical explanation for both how we were able to develop the way we did if our diet were predominantly F&V and secondly why we lost our capacity to produce our own EFA’s. That for me is very significant.
Nh quoting your post: “”If abrassarti is required to digest the green vegetables that undergo no digestion in the stomach, then it will be there or it's task taken by another.””
Yes the task is taken by another and the product is different. I conclude from the article that T.abrassarti is not present in our digestive tract. If T.abrassarti does allow us to produce EFA’s I want to try it.
Your quote: “”but my take on this is that you don't mess with the inner domain.””
My experience and confidence is almost the opposite: I have fermented and produced many cultured foods over the years. Cultures from the contents of animal intestines used animal intestines for sausages and used BIM’s both in agriculture and for food production. None of these have ever caused the slightest illness or unease. Currently I am trying to stabalize a number of these cultures with various agents salt etc. Again no stomach issues. Maybe my very strength is due to the exposures that many decry.
The literature points to the fact that T. abrassarti is difficult to culture. I will continue following this closely. Finding other animal sources and see if I can find a logical vector for human exposure to this MO. Looking at the animal trials literature it appears that transmission is by animal to animal exposure. If we were eating the intestines of killed animals occasionally as appears to have been the case, and is well documented, then it would appear that exposure to T.abrassarti would have been “easy” via the animal to animal vector.
This fits with an idea that I have held for some time: We need view the natural environment as benign if not supportive rather than dangerous if not deadly. The hygiene obsession probably weakens us on some levels while it is beneficial/very important on others. Sure there are baddies out there but also go0dies which we loose exposure to also because of our attitudes. However to my mind too much is made of the dangers and not enough of the important synergies that exist when an organism exists fully in its environment. Not recongising that and failing to recognize that our guts should “mimic”, in a very complex way, that very complexity of the natural environment in which we live is a failure to understand just how much we are a consequence of the very environment which nurtures us.
Yours is a very interesting post and unfortunately way above my head in many ways. I still cannot find a reference to T.abrassarti in the LitD text so I'm not sure why you keep mentioning it in relation to this discussion. Please forgive me if I'm just being thick. Perhaps you're referring to one of the supporting studies that are held separate from the text and just not highlighting that fact.
If you're referring to the paper "Nutritional Characteristics of Wild Primate Foods: Do the Diets of Our Closest Living Relatives Have Lessons for Us?", I haven't read it yet and will have to catch up some time.
This reference (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1550-7408.2008.00369.x/pdf) picked at random from an internet search seems to indicate that scientists think of T.abrassarti as an undesirable infection that is getting passed between apes and mentions one baby taking 9 mos to prove positive for it. Does this mean that it is not required for ape survival or just that they can survive for at least a while before it becomes imperative.
You say "My experience and confidence is almost the opposite: I have fermented and produced many cultured foods over the years. Cultures from the contents of animal intestines used animal intestines for sausages and used BIM’s both in agriculture and for food production. None of these have ever caused the slightest illness or unease. Currently I am trying to stabalize a number of these cultures with various agents salt etc. Again no stomach issues. Maybe my very strength is due to the exposures that many decry."
I wonder how you can say that you've used animal intestines for sausages and they've never caused the slightest illness? Animal products are reknown for being carcinogenic and poisonous to human health and IMO, it's only by ignoring extremely weighty evidence that anyone can hold a contrary opinion.
However, I agree with you that an open and inquiring mind is needed to expand our understanding of this field and, as you more or less say, not deprive ourselves of optimum health by obstinate bias.
Tony started a new book project aiming to get the theory into the mainstream so it can be looked at closer- as this would be an essential step in determining if the basic diagnosis is true and, if it is, this could single-handedly halt many of the problems spawning from the human mind today. Imagine how the world would change overnight if everyone realized we're all neurologically dysfunctional.
There is also a new interview/article on the theory which is very interesting, and it summarizes some of the key points.
Finally got a chance to follow the links and follow the discussion on the unexplained-mysteries forum. Not surprisingly, there was the usual onslaught of people quick to deny the theory without actually reading the book. Nothing like people proving the theory by demonstrating their own left-sided blindness!
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Left in the Dark - Extraordinary support for the frugivorian lifestyle 
