For many years the site beyondveg.com was bugging me with its omnipresence in search results each time I researched a nutritional subject. I decided to analyze what exactly they have against fruitarianism and chosen the main related articles on the site.

Ward Nicholson: Raw Flesh vs Fruit

Ward Nicholson, paleolithic diet advocate or omophagia (eating of raw flesh ) in "The fallacy of fruitarianism: word games vs. the real world of practice and results" (beyondveg.com):

...There is the problem of defining just what you mean by the words "fruit" and "fruitarian". There is a lot of gamesmanship, sleight-of-hand, and word redefinition that goes on among fruitarian advocates to redefine "fruit" away from the common definition (soft, pulpy, sweet, juicy fruits from tree or vine) so that it includes the so-called "vegetable fruits" like peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and the like, or "nut-fruits" and so on, so as to broaden what is considered "fruitarian." In a botanical sense, these foods can be considered fruits, and thus - if we stretch things a bit - perhaps "technically" permissible in what might be called a "fruitarian" diet. 

The problem, however, is that most fruitarians don't even stop there either. Most go further and allow or even specifically recommend "greens" and/or "green-leafed vegetables" as essential, and of course neither of these qualify as fruit even in the botanical sense.

I'd say, fruitarians eat any plant matter removing of which would not harm the host plant. Those parts - most attractive are sweet fleshy fruits - are normally produced by the tree or other type of plants to "give away", to be eaten with purpose of spreading its seeds.

  The closest approximation to fruitarianism (and not completely so, at that) in an ape-like species might have been in the time period of around 40 million years ago, but you have to realize these creatures were apes and not human. Humans themselves (the genus Homo, beginning with Homo habilis over 2 million years ago) have never been fruitarian. Even chimps, who are the nearest modern ape species to fruitarianism, do not eat above 2/3 fruit or so in the case of the common chimp, or perhaps as high as 80% in the case of the bonobo chimp--in either case still a significant amount short of 100%, especially when you consider they both also eat leaves, pith, insects, and a bit of meat too.

How can he know that they "have never been fruitarian"? Gorillas do not eat any meat. Modern apes live in a different conditions, it does not matter so much, what they do, but the high raw fruit intake is factual and says a lot.

 As a number of Natural Hygiene practitioners have noted, however, few humans can eat even 2/3 fruit over long periods of time without getting into serious difficulties. We had several M2M folks try near-fruitarian diets, and no one had any lasting success with it, although some have done fine for several months at first, perhaps even a year or two. In fact, those that we knew of in the M2M reported getting into trouble trying to do so and later regretted their naivete in attempting it, due to the problems that eventually followed. The two most common repercussions of long-term attempts at fruitarianism are usually that the teeth are the first to go, then people's blood-sugar processing abilities, along with deficiencies.

Where is the scientific data supporting those claims? What is "blood sugar processing abilities"? There are ruitarians successful for many years and even decades.

People may do well at first, but this is because they are living off of past nutritional reserves, and when the stored reserves run out, the game's over. This is a theme we've probably beaten to death here, but it warrants repetition, especially with regard to fruitarian diets: It is not enough for a diet to be "clean" - it must also be a sufficient diet. Fruitarianism and near-fruitarianism are the worst possible case, because in addition to progressive long-term deficiencies, the body's insulin-production capabilities are being simultaneously overwhelmed with the high carbohydrate load in the form of higher glycemic-index foods containing simpler sugars like glucose, sucrose, and fructose.

Again, where is scientific research result? Why overwhelmed?!

Fruitarian gurus weren't actually practicing what they preached, but followers who did ran aground. As part of the series, Dinshah told of his investigations, ranging over many years, of all the fruitarian advocates he knew of at the time claiming to live on fruitarian diets. He originally thought himself that fruitarianism seemed theoretically possible. But over the years, what he discovered was that none of them - and this included famed fruitarian advocates like Johnny Lovewisdom, Walter Siegmeister (pen name Raymond Bernard), and Viktoras Kulvinskas - were actually living on fruitarian diets, even as they defined the diet for themselves. Yet there were many others Dinshah met who had taken the advice of these people quite seriously and had gotten themselves into very serious health troubles.

Again, where is the information about what they ate, how much, what conditions, etc.?

 Lovewisdom was eating plenty of vegetables but made the excuse his orchards and gardens in the Ecuadorian tropics were not in the right place to enable the fruit to be of the quality to support him in good health. Breatharian advocate Siegmeister was living not even as a fruitarian but as a vegan. And Kulvinskas was basically eating as a garden-variety raw-foodist vegetarian with periodic lapses back to cooked food - while he had previously championed liquitarianism (juices only), fruitarianism, and even breatharianism.

So what? These are only 3 people, and one of them considered himself breatharian, not fruitarian.

Through another route, I've seen reporting on Wiley Brooks [Mapes 1993] a reputed, so-called "breatharian," who readily admits to eating Big Macs and Twinkies now and then, but claims those are not what actually sustain him - it is really the air sustaining him in spite of what he is eating!

What this person has to do with fruitarianism?!

 Also included in Dinshah's article series was the substance of a conversation he had once had with Dr. Gerald Benesh who reported that "in all his years of practice, in fasting, rebuilding, and advising people in even that wonderful climate [near Escondido, CA in the 1960s] and with the fine fruits available in the area and from below the Mexican border, he had nonetheless never been able to bring even one of his people to the point where they could live in good health on just fruits."For how long? What was the diet? Who were the people and how many?

Benesh [1971] listed the following symptoms of people on long-term fruitarian diets that he had seen in his own Natural Hygiene practice:

Ridged nails, gingivitis, dental caries, dry skin and brittle hair, lowered red blood cell count and low hemoglobin percentage. Over a long period of time (at least one year or more) the blood serum level drops to a point of an impending pathological state if not corrected. Many of them display serious signs of neurological disorders, while some experience emotional upsets and extreme nervousness and often complain of insomnia. When their nutritional program is corrected these signs disappear and the patient finds himself in a much improved state of health. 

What about control group? And again, where are the details?

According to Benesh, the excessive amounts of organic acids from a fruitarian diet are unable to be adequately buffered by the digestive system, with the result that these acids end up in the large colon where they interfere with proper balance and/or amount of intestinal flora. The ultimate result can be compromised bowel function, which in a few cases can result in serious health problems such as colitis, if the person continues to persist on the diet.

This is a strange theory. As we know today, the balance in microflora is easy to shake, in days or weeks If those people where feeling wonderful for the first months and years on fruit, as was stated previously, than this assumption must be wrong.

Benesh theorizes that the excessive acids cause salts to be drawn from the cells of the colon resulting in flaccidity and interference with peristalsis. (Note that if a similar process occurred in the small intestine as well, this might be a possible explanation for why extended attempts at fruitarianism sometimes result in the apparent inability to digest so-called "heavier" foods [nuts, cooked potatoes or rice, etc.], which may pass through the digestive tract relatively little digested, as reported by some fruitarians. See Tom Billings' bio on this site for a brief mention of his experiences in this regard as a former fruitarian.) Benesh also notes that hemorrhoids are not uncommon, and that fecal analysis may reveal occult blood as a result of minute petechial hemorrhages of the small blood vessels in the mucosal lining of the intestine.

I never had any problems with peristalsis, eating fruit only for many months in a row, as many other raw vegans and fruitarians. And it is not true about "heavier foods", I ate nuts, and even potatoes sometimes - no indigestion (I had it before and I know what it means).

So far, what has inevitably been found is that such fruitarians are either in poor health if they have truly been eating solely sweet and succulent fruits for any length of time; or if in seemingly good health, they invariably include other foods that the rest of us would consider vegetables or "greens"; and most often also nuts and avocados as well (which are hard to do without and still obtain sufficient fat and protein on this kind of diet).

This is ridiculous, nuts and avocados are fruit by definition, as many vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.

All other stuff in this article is only a personal opinion of one person, we'll speak about his experiences later.

this makes an interesting read too ... http://chetday.com/hallelujah-diet-dangers.htm

i'm reluctant to comment too authoritatively on this but it seems to me that people don't allow sufficient time to adapt to a fruitarian diet.  nor do they do so gradually enough.  i think the 20 years i spent as a vegetarian has served me well in this regard.  however, i'm being cautios about the changes i've been making to my diet.  and i'd be quite open to accepting that i had gone to far if that turned out to be the case.  time will no doubt tell.

for those intersted in evolution, i'd recommend consideration of the aquatic theory.

Interesting articles indeed... I don't have much authoritative to say either, but I would have to agree with raspberry, that many may not allow themselves to adapt properly to a diet like this.

One thing that came to mind when reading these articles was an infant getting weaned off of mother's milk. Isn't the most natural food at this stage normally just fruit? And only fruit? Until they can start to tolerate other types of foods and cooked foods, to which they usually an aversion, until they can get used to it by force feeding and develop a taste for them. This is what I have read and heard, anyway, and I have not had a baby myself :). But if it is so, then it makes me think that an infant's delicate system can only handle the foods that it was naturally meant to eat and tolerate, as a human. THEN we learn to survive on other foods.

I can't say much else about the claims in these articles. This way of eating makes more sense than anything to me right now, but mostly I am to the point where I am learning to listen to my body as the highest teacher, and it feels like it is thriving on fruits. But I also know that I have not eaten this way for most of my life, so I am staying open as well, with compassion and openness to whatever is needed in the moment. So I am not dogmatic. But my body is definitely liking this.

Honestly, these articles didn't convince me of much at all. It sounded very reactionary to me and didn't do very well at providing evidence to debunk the "myths" of this diet. I think the switch to fruitarianism is complicated at best, after lifetimes of eating quite the opposite, and it is from this place that articles like these come. What about the standard diets and all the problems that stem from them? To me those problems seem to be quite a bit more serious...

Thank you for your insight guys!

I was having too little time to comment on it myself and on other articles from this site (http://www.beyondveg.com), but I'll do it soon too.

I just think we need to look directly into problems if they are there, respond to critique by point, and not all on this site must be "feeling good" stuff, do you agree?

(I highlighted the most controversial or strong  points in bold in the middle of the text myself)

At last I've finished commenting on these articles :)

Hope to hear more opinions!

From an interview of David Wolfe, founder of The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (www.ftpf.org), co-author of Nature's First Law: The Raw Food Diet by Bob Avery

Q: Archeological research indicates that man has been a hunter for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. Why shouldn't raw animal foods play a role in a raw food diet?

A: It is a well-known fact of biology that environmental toxins accumulate in animals, especially in animal fats. All the toxins being poured into the atmosphere end up being collected in the tissues of animals. Eating those animals, whether they be insect, fish, or mammal will also give you a strong dose of toxins. John Robbins mentioned in Diet For A New America that dead animal muscle (meat) contains ten times the pesticide level an equivalent weight of commercial plant food would contain; dairy products contain four times as much.

Additionally, raw dead flesh is loaded with worms and parasites; even someone who eats McDonald's three times a day knows that!

Eating raw animal foods is not only unnatural, but also quite dangerous in the present world we live in.

Omnivorous feeding patterns discovered in the genus Homo (by nescient researchers in archeological digs) before the discovery of fire in scattered places throughout the world dating back from the 100,000's to millions of years do not signify anything of significance except for the fact that some humans were living in contravention to their natural design, perhaps due to terrestrial disasters, confusion, or unknowable factors. Also, there is no evidence that we modern humans are directly descended from any such Homo progenitors.

Q: No evidence? The M2M's founder, Ward Nicholson, summarized the known widely accepted scientific archeological evidence in favor of such a genealogical linkage in his very well researched and massively footnoted 3-part interview in Chet Day's natural hygiene newsletter Health & Beyond.

A: The most recent study I've seen on the subject analyzed the DNA of chimpanzees, Neanderthals, and modern humans. The study found (and because this is off the top of my head, the numbers could be slightly off here) 56 differences between chimps and modern humans along a certain segment of DNA, 27 differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, and 8 differences among all modern humans.

The researchers suggested that such a great variation indicated that Neanderthals were a different species and that modern humans are not descended from Neanderthals. And don't share a genetic development into modem humans.

This is just one example of a lack of genealogical linkages between other Homo species (Neanderthal, Erectus, Habilis, Archaic Sapiens, etc.) and modern humans. There are many more.

I would like to point out the evidence which demonstrates modern Homo Sapiens have been around for millions of years and did not appear 100,000 to 200,000 years ago as Ward and many evolutionary scientists are suggesting.

Professor of Geology, Gene Ragazoni discovered in Castenedolo, Italy in 1860 and 1880 the remains of at least four anatomically modern human skeletons in undisturbed Miocene strata. Such formations date back at least 2 million years.

In Buenos Aires, in 1896, below a hardened limestone layer of tasca 35 feet down, dock workers unearthed the crown of an anatomically modern human. The rock formations dated back 1.5 to 2.5 million years ago.

In Trenton, New Jersey, researchers unearthed an anatomically modern Homo Sapiens femur dating back 107,000 years ago.

When the gold rush began in California in the 1860's, miners unearthed inexplicable artifacts. "Inexplicable" because they were so old! In 1877, John H. Neal entered the Montezuma mine shaft in Table mountain in California. He discovered at the leading end of a mine shaft a mortar and pestle layered in the late Miocene formations of gold-bearing gravels. This would indicate the objects could be seven to nine million years old. Miners made similar discoveries at dozens of nearby locations, including Kincaid Flat, Goldspring Gulch, Oregon Bar (in Placer County). These findings were all reported by J.D. White, the State Geologist of California.

Ward's scientific evidence is simply "research"--he has researched other people's theories, concepts, and ideas. I would highly recommend that he and others read Joel Barker's famous book The Business of Paradigms. Barker demonstrates how preconceived ideas can literally blind us to evidence staring us right in the face. I tell my audiences, "They don't believe what they see, rather they see what they already believe!" We may well remember that the Theory of Evolution was formulated before archaeologists began digging into the Earth--thus, the idea of what they should find was already firmly embedded in their minds. It is in this way that much evidence in contravention to the Theory of Evolution has been passed over or ignored by many scientists (but not all!) because it doesn't fit the paradigm!

Q: What is your general opinion of raw animal food consumption and instinctive eating in particular?

A: The raw animal eating fad is the result of people trying to go raw the easy way (the new magic pill). Eating raw animal food instead of cooked food is just replacing one toxic substance for another. If people want to eat animals, they should do it in exactly the same fashion as every other carnivore/omnivore on the planet - freshly killed and raw - if they can. Humans can't and are averse to it by intuitive nature.

Q: But don't all primates eat insects, including all of homo sapiens' progenitors? They are even eaten to this day in many human societies.

A: Many primates eat their own feces too. Soon. We'll have people claiming we need to eat our own feces to be healthy! The fact that we are naturally averse to eating bugs speaks strongly. We have a natural biological design for certain types of foods (raw fruits and vegetables). If we want to actualize our true potential we need to obey that design - this is Nature's First Law.

I believe very strongly in the dictum "Water seeks its own level.

Oral fixation is the primary problem facing humanity. People cannot or don't want to control what they are putting into their mouths. Raw animal eating is another manifestation of oral fixation. We are currently publishing a book entitled "Primal Mothering In A Modern World" by Hygeia Halfmoon. In the book, Hygeia makes the incredible observation that it is a lack of breast-feeding which is the primary cause of oral fixation later in life!! I believe cooked-food addiction also plays a major role as well.

Reference:

"With a masters degree in nutrition, and a background in science and mechanical engineering, David Wolfe is considered one of the world’s top authorities on natural health, beauty nutrition, herbalism, chocolate, and organic superfoods".

I love a quote I read somewhere on intuitive eating:

"When you see a dead animal next to the road, do you feel like stopping for a snack?"

Think it says a lot! Also, most people could never imagine eating a dog or horse, but a cow or chicken is OK??

Regarding other primate's eating habits: One theory is that they eat insects and greens only because they cannot always find enough fruit. And I've also heard that their meat-eating habits are much more about showing dominance than nutrition.