by Gelert » Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:57 pm
People, chillax. Raw toast is where it's at.
I have no preconceptions as to what a "raw food looney" is like, let alone whether some poster on the internet is one or not. Most of the people following a raw food diet I have met in person have seemed perfectly sincere and intelligent people who are committed to their lifestyle/mode of eating. Some of the people have been a little bit keener, ready to evangelize and I suspect there's often an element of delusion or exploitation in their motivation. One or two have been positively barking. Such is life, and such is any given cause - raw foodism, veganism. Raw toast.
[quote="Maddy"]People are going to get defensive if someone who really didn't spend that long doing something (whatever the reasons) dismisses their experiences as placebo - that is an unfair comment
I'm addressing your point here:
[quote]And clearly science has some holes otherwise no one would be feeling good eating raw food when according to you there is no basis in science for this to work.
Which is not exactly a paradigm for "fair and balanced" comment!
A placebo effect does not invalidate your experience. Far from it. It doesn't undermine the outcome one bit - just the exact mechanism of it.
With the more usual forms of placebo, the bigger and brighter the colour of the smartie given, and the more praiseworthy the person administering it is about its efficacy, the less pain the patient has. Nobody would dismiss that the patient is feeling less pain, but if someone starts waffling on about E numbers in the smartie binding to arachidonic acid receptors or something like that, well I'd be a little suspect in the absence of evidence to support that claim.
So just so I make myself clear by repetition ad nauseum:
1. I'm not dismissing Maddy's experience, or CoeyCoey's experience, or anyone else's. So please, let's cut the victim game. Thus far the only experience which has been dismissed here is mine - because I allegedly ate too much fruit, or didn't stick with it for long enough. Or something. I'm waiting for someone to try the "nocebo" argument! Funny that. I'm sure plenty of post-hoc invocation will go on. This is yet another reason why experience on the level of n=me is not such a great yardstick.
2. I'm not actually dismissing the potential for raw food diets to make someone feel good. I'm wording that very carefully.
What I am sceptical of is much of the reasoning used to advocate such diets. It either comes down to the same ol' or the argument of "try it, it will make you feel good" or "don't knock what you haven't tried".
I'm sure we could make a case for tobacco smoking, or alcohol abuse, wearing odd socks, cooked food, or ritualized indecent exposure on public transport - anything under the sun - with those arguments.
For as long as I can remember, when either type of claim has been challenged here on VF, the response is usually a mixture of bluster and vitriol. Biased studies this and flawed science that. It is never rebutted with clear, objective evidence. Extraordinary claims do need extraordinary evidence, so maybe that's why it's hard to come by. If, for example, what's alleged about enzymes is true, it would radically alter our knowledge of biochemistry. It could lead to extraordinary advances in biotechnology and medicine. Sadly I doubt that is the case.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but in the absence of evidence and the default slanderous response of posters like CoeyCoey, forgive that scepticism.
Maybe that's why these discussions do get a little heated, because one way or another there are some very big, shiny smarties in the raw foodism pillbox.
. Baking is cooking 
