Hi everybody,

Our online tutorial is now available for free. It summarizes 38 years of combined experience and contains a wealth of practical advice for the successful application of a truly raw diet. The method described in the tutorial is applicable non-vegan and vegan style either way. It's primary focus is to teach you how to efficiently listen to your own body signals and find your dietary solutions from within. The tutorial is the fruit of 3 years of work from conception to launching.

Please fill in the request form at the following link:
[www.genefitnutrition.com]
We will send you the access link for free shortly thereafter.

Much love,
Roman and Antje

sounds like a cool idea .. ya had me right up untill the spearfishing and bowhunting part

no thanks good luck with your venture

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Not quite sure what you are talking about. There is no mention of spearfishing and/or bowhunting in the tutorial.

Roman

ijust checked your website not the tutorial , under your projects section

this is your company and its not something i support .. i didnt get the tutorial i just checked your company.

quoted: Departing from the guest villages, individuals, couples or groups of 3 to 10 people accompanied by an experienced coach will spend from a few days to several weeks totally emerged into the island's ecosystem. Participants will face the challenges of finding their own food. They will learn to recognize tropical fruit trees and edible plants, spearfish, spearfish,bow hunt, and experience the pride of gathering food directly from the natural environment they temporarily live in. The coaches will provide counseling and education in fields such as food gathering techniques, the practice of GeneFit Nutrition in the wild, the overcoming of fears and phobias and many other aspects of living in the wild

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2007 10:55PM by Jgunn.

well, in all fairness, if it isn't in the article he's promoting, there isn't anything wrong with that.

plus, compared to the extent the population at large thinks about how/where their food comes from (boxes and ailes(sp))

being immersed in an environment where they have to fend for themselves...even if this includes spearing some poor fish...sounds productive to me. being more afraid of KFC and Red Lobster then living in the wild

sure thing i was speaking for myself, nobody else

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I agree with Jgunn, and I'm not interested in the guide either. It is stupid to live in the wild and kill animals, not productive, when we have the skills to build structures and a mass of knowledge of how to grow our own vegetation in enclosed areas. It is just like so-called "vision quests" where people go into the middle of nowhere, starve themselves, and gain the spiritual benefits of post traumatic stress disorder.

ok i didnt have time to make a more detailed reply last night as i was at a folkfest all weekend

heres my issue(s) with this

1) again thank you for providing some free info, but i checked your website before accessing your online book for a few reasons. Personally im not gonna be interested in advice from someone that doesnt have the same ethical lines of ideas as myself (no animal products) ...i wouldnt take nutrion advice from anyone that pushes meat and this is no exception.

2) Genefit is wanting to build a ecosensitive resort area that to me seems like it will cater to elite guests .. and they wish to cater to prooviding exclusive in-home nutrition programs for celebrities, athletes and VIPs .. good on ya .. but the rest of us dont fit into those categories

3) The island Genefit is looking to build on is was familiar to me id seen it before so a quick search reveeals that INDEED it is or was owned by Mel Gibson at least in 2005. Its called Mago Island here [www.worldwindcentral.com] and here [www.uniqueproperties.ca] The indegionous people and their decendants have been fighting to reclaim their right to that *largest freehold island* in the south pacific for years as they were *removed* from it. read it here [www.theage.com.au] and here [news.bbc.co.uk] Coming from a native background myself you can imagine how i feel about this *ahem* perhaps its still owned by mel or not .. irregardless its not in the hands of the people it should be in my opinion

4) If you want to have elite tourists frolicking about an island for a few days foraging and killing their own food i cant help but wonder if you are going to show the finer points of skinning, curing gutting their animals or is it gonna be a high five notch in the belt heyyy i did it kinda thing . I come from a farm background and have alot of blood on my hands i will admit that, it was part of us growing up .. killing and butchering.. are these elite tourists going to be a part of tht process? I dont have a problem with people knowing where their food comes from i just see why the sensles harpooning of some island deer needs to be involved in proving the point

again .. thanks but no thanks , this company doesnt resonate with me physically, socially, mentally, karmically or in any way at all that would make me want to consider their advice

and thats just my opinion .. again thanks but no thanks

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2007 01:09AM by Jgunn.

oh an btw ... on one page you claim genefit knowledge is 30 combined years, then another you claim 20 + 12 = 32 combined years .. and then here you claim 38 years ..


consistency is a good thing to practice when selling things/ideas

i guess i also have a problem with people like this coming onto a board like this and just right out advertising without contributing to the discussions at least for a little while ... but hey its not my board im just a guest

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2007 01:24AM by Jgunn.

i just see why the sensles harpooning of some island deer needs to be involved in proving the point

should read

i just DONT see why the sensles harpooning of some island deer needs to be involved in proving the point

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Jodi I just had to tell you that I love the way you're always ready to look into and research things. Thank you. And I totally agree with you on this one.

Francis

thanks Frannie !

Im sure Roman and Antje are very nice people and for the most part (like so many people) their vision is a very interesting one

hopefully they will reconsider the inclusion of pointlessly killing animals in their vision at some point seeing it as silly and pointless. the whole *survivor* show mentality is pretty silly. survivor, fear factor and all the other stupid reality shows that cater to the sensory depraved masses will hopefully be coughing their dying breaths soon

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I still disagree.

most people are on the island of: "learn how to make your own burgers and shakes". yet they arn't even interested in participating in the activities!

If I had to catch a fish..and was given a spear..


then the next day we walked down a path and it was littered with mulberries...the following day of spearfishin' would be absent 1 person...haha

point being: most people have a LONG way to go. Being exposed to the effort that would normally go into such a thing...that is clouded by our uberefficient system of mass slaughter...could probably go a long way...for most folks. Maybe others get off by stabbing a fish with a spear...who knows, but probably no more morally problematic than eating flesh in ignorance.

just my take

i guess we disagree then lol .. i do agree that most people are so far removed from the process they dont have a clue .. but ..

i just dont see any merit whatsoever having some elite ecotourist killing a defenseless animal for what? to prove they have the cajones too?

people can see where their food comes from .. go to a slaughter house, watch a peta video, research on the internet .. those no reason for another animal to die for no reason

and if theyre promoting a raw food lifestyel .. what does killing critters have to do with that? unless they intend to have their *guests* eat the carcasses raw too? are these guests going to take these skills home and use them somehow in suburbia? its senseless to me, there are so many better ways to educate people than taking the life of soemthing else

on their website they say

quote:Your help will give us the power to create a place where human presence is not synonym of destruction.

is killing something not destruction? and humans doing it .. is that not a human presence of destruction?

im quite sure anybody has enough survival instinct in them to be able to spear a fish or harpoon a pig if that scenario ever presented itself .. or better yet foragge some plant sustenance ...

sacrificing animals for the sake of entertainment to me is just wrong, i would hope genefit would reconsider their stance on that particular part of their *program* if not .. i find that terribly dissapointing

one of my stepfathers had this idea of *you should know where your food coems from* ... ive shot everything from birds to bovines .. alive one minute looking you in the eye with total oblivous trust .. the next laying at your feet in a pool of blood .. its traumatic ...no thanks not for me ..never again and i wouldnt wish the experience on anybody

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2007 04:33AM by Jgunn.

Dear Jodie,

Sorry to hear that you have been offended by an article on our website. Needless to say that it wasn't our intention to upset you in any way. Since we are running three projects in parallel, we did not have the time to consult the bulletin board during the week and therefore have not been following your messages. It is only last night that we saw that much has been said during our absence.

Roman started on a raw food diet by the age of 17 (1984) and has been 100% raw for 23 consecutive years. Antje started eating by the age of 19 (1991) and has been 100% raw for 15 years with one year interruption. If the durations on our website are inconsistent it is because we forgot to update the numbers as years went by. The website has been up for quite some time. We will rectify that in the following days. Thanks for pointing that out.

Our teachings and dietary programs have always been open to both, vegans and non-vegans as well. There has never been any pressure or "pushing" either way. Ironically, us refusing to take position in that matter has precisely be the reason we have been verbally and physically attacked by the most fanatic members of the raw vegan movement. In fact, most aggression and defamatory attempts unfortunately came from the vegan side and not the other way around.

We have always tried to stay away from vegan vs. animal food debate because this particular topic is not central to our message. We are concerned with the application of a truly raw diet that by nature, excludes any form of food preparation and recipes altogether —no juicing, no grinding, no mixing and no seasoning. In our method, foods are chosen by using the chemical senses alone allowing a person to obtain answers from within rather than having to rely on somebody else's dietary advice.

We don't believe in sectarianism and are rather promoting unity than division. We have had Genefit Nutrition programs were vegans and non-vegans shared the same table in mutual respect simply because there is more to life and human relationships than arguing about dietary considerations. We do prefer it this way.

As mentioned in our book, when it comes to decide about whether or not to include animal foods in one's raw diet, we see two separate aspects. First, the nutritional/biological aspect and second the moral/religious issues around it. In order to remain objective, we believe that both aspects have to be considered independently from each other.

The choice of excluding animal foods in one's diet for moral or religious reasons is a personal choice and we believe it is best that way. Because nutrition is such an intimate process, we chose not to impose either system to others and rather let each person choose whatever feels more comfortable.

As for the biological standpoint, Genefit Nutrition is an on-going attempt to define the diet that fits the human genome. The raw movement being a relatively young movement, at present times no one has been able to provide irrefutable scientific proof that would allow to conclude either way. Opposing arguments (some more convincing than others) have been brought forth by both sides. We have seen problems with raw vegan diets, but we have also seen problems with raw diets including animal foods. More research and experimentation is therefore needed. It sometimes takes many consecutive generations to determine with absolute certainty if a diet is viable or not in the long run. From a standpoint of intellectual honesty, we presently don't feel comfortable giving a clear-cut answer whether a raw vegan or a raw non-vegan diet is the diet that fits the human genome best. Until further evidence we remain open-minded about both methods.

We hope that this message will answer your concerns.
Much love,
R&A

what a great post

especially this..

We are concerned with the application of a truly raw diet that by nature, excludes any form of food preparation and recipes altogether —no juicing, no grinding, no mixing and no seasoning. In our method, foods are chosen by using the chemical senses alone allowing a person to obtain answers from within rather than having to rely on somebody else's dietary advice.

Concerning our island project, we consider a survivalist experience far from being silly. It is indeed for most people a life-transforming, humbling and even mystical experience especially when lived in combination with a diet that excludes any form of food preparation. The island project is about experiencing the magic and pride of life as a human being and not a end-product of a consumer society. It reconnects us to our roots as being part of Life itself. We don't quite understand what can possibly be wrong with that?

Stays on the island are not exclusively reserved for the wealthiest. The term "resort" can indeed be misleading and we do understand how you (Jodie) came to the conclusions mentioned in your previous postings. We will amend the article accordingly. For your information, we intend to have a whole range of different programs available. Some programs address university students especially those in fields like biology and anthropology and are therefore very affordable.

Accommodations will be extremely simplistic, if any and no one will be served on the island, only guided/assisted at most. Stays on the island are open to both vegans and non-vegans. All activities on the island are optional and not mandatory. Ultimately, it is the person's choice to have a vegan survivor experience or a non-vegan one. However, we believe that if someone chooses to include animal foods in his or her diet that person should at least once in his or her life face the reality of hunting and fishing. Some people after such experience may indeed chose to go vegan just as it has been the case for you.

In the raw vegan movement there has been an on-going attempt of demonizing subsistence activities like fishing and hunting and the people involved in them, yet native american societies are considered by most people the summon of live in harmony with Nature and all its creatures. Buffalo hunting was a sacred event to the point the animal itself was deified. Does hunting suddenly make native americans the "bad guys"? Of course, to the partisan this may sound like we are promoting meat eating (or hunting per se) on a vegan list when in fact we are not. It is important to specify that originally we had no intention to mention the island project on this list until somebody else did. Nonetheless, the above is just an example that shows that when one is able to walk both paths without any emotional investment in neither of them, there is more to the story than simple black and white.

Much love,
R&A

To bananabender (R&A),

I've read the above, but I'm still not clear about one thing that I would consider essential.

Are Roman and Antje VEGANS or are Roman and Antje MEATEATERS? If you are both vegans, then for how long?

If not, then although I personally respect your beliefs regarding animal consumption, I ask YOU to also respect the very clearly defined rules of this forum. THIS IS A VEGAN FORUM.

Because THIS IS A VEGAN FORUM, unless you say otherwise, people might mistakenly assume that when you say you are raw, you mean you are raw VEGAN. If that is not the case, please say so clearly.

If you are not vegan, then even though you are all raw, you may not have acquired the personal experience as a raw food VEGAN that would really qualify you to teach raw food VEGANISM. Knowing whether or not you are VEGAN might help others on this forum to be better able to judge for themselves whether or not they feel they could learn from your free tutorial.

If you ARE vegan, then perhaps you can understand how it might seem a little strange to other vegans that you would help teach or enable people to kill animals.

WHATEVER THE CASE, WITH THIS NEW INFORMATION COMING TO LIGHT, PLEASE BE SO KIND AS TO STATE CLEARLY WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE VEGAN.

Just thought I'd add that a lifestyle in harmony with nature does not necessarily require taking another animal's life. Perhaps, in fact, the time for humans to kill animals has passed. With the human population rate having greatly exceeded what it was when the Americas were filled exlusively with indigenous peoples, perhaps our ecosystems can no longer accomodate that particular lifestyle. My husband is part Native American, and he is a committed VEGAN.

I'm sorry if you feel you have been attacked in the past by vegans. I don't know anything about that, but I don't see anything in what Jgunn has said that should be construed as an attack. Jgunn has spoken in defense of those critters who can't speak for themselves.

Thank you Jgunn for bringing to light all this background information.

Just curious, and this is kind of off the point, but why isn't the gutting and skinning of animals considered a "form of food preparation"? Or do you condone just eating whatever part of the carcass can be eaten at the immediate time of the kill and discarding the rest - guts, skin, leftover meat and all? Do you condone some sort of preservation for the leftovers, like smoking? Native Americans didn't waste any of the carcass, but preservation of the leftovers definitely required "food preparation". By using those "preparation" tequniques, they were able to kill only the very little they felt they needed to survive.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2007 09:33PM by suncloud.

To bananabender,

Other than the above (huge) concerns, your Fiji Island project sounds absolutely fantastic.

I surely wish it were a vegan project.

Your site clearly says that visitors will be taught to bowhunt and spearfish. Will you teach the visitors yourselves, or will you hire natives to teach those "skills"? Will your visitors be required to make their own weapons? What safeguards will you have in place to ensure you don't get a Cheney out there who could endanger another visitor or inhabitant, or who wants to kill every fish and animal in sight?

Sounds exciting though, planting all those trees.

I'd be interested to see what kind of permaculture techniques you'll be using for maintaining your orchards. Have you considered what native groundcover/composting materials you will use? If you'll be using wild animal manures to fertilize your trees, have you determined how you will ensure that your wild animal population will not be depleted by your hunting visitors? If you use domesticated animal permaculture techniques, will you be fencing your orchards? Have you considered how you will keep your wild animal population from eating your baby trees?

Will you be stocking game on the island? Will there be a hunting season and/or rules to determine a limit per visitor on the number and/or sex of the kill? Will you attempt to provide fish and animal sanctuaries? How will you deal with orphaned animals? Are there any endangered species that will need to be protected, and how will you protect them?

Have you considered meaningful ways to involve your visitors in specific chores and kapus (taboos) for maintaining your flora and fauna populations?

Your island is a fairly small ecosystem. Sounds like you'll need a lot of planning and some experienced tropical permaculturists to pull it off. In an area so small, without some really thorough planning, what may begin as a free-style human endeavor for natural living, could end up as an ecological disaster.

Hope not. But humans unfortunately have a lot of power over their environment, and the smaller the environment is, the greater the impact.

On a different note, I'm a little curious about your program to deliver meals to the homes of people who follow your nutritional regimen. If the meals sometimes contain meat, is it exclusively wild meat? Who hunts/fishes it, where does it come from, and how is it stored? Has it been previously frozen?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2007 11:49PM by suncloud.

A couple of other considerations:

What precautions will you take to keep seeds from invasive species from coming in on the clothing of your visitors or yourselves?

Will your visitors be required to pull invasive weeds, or how else will you prevent invasive species from decimating the native flora on your island, like the Miconia has done on the island of Tahiti?

What invasive plant species are already on your island, and how will you control them?

Do you plan on introducing nonnative potentially invasive animal species to your island for game for your visitors, and have you thoroughly studied potential impacts on the existing ecosystem of your island?

What kind of existing game will your visitors hunt? Native tropical birds? What other animals? If you teach your visitors how to determine which species are endangered and which are not, how will you know that they have acquired the skill to know the difference? And how will you know that they will leave the endangered species alone even if they DO know the difference?

Have you studied the impact of other similar ventures on islands in your vicinity to try to avoid the negative impacts?

Are there indigenous people on the island, and how do they feel about your project? How have you proposed to compensate them?

Is there an environmental impact study for your project that includes mitigating measures, and if not, shouldn't you do one, whether or not Fiji requires one?

just stopped in for a sec preparing for a blues fest ,

suncloud THANK you for all your insight and wonderful questions

I hope Genefit will come back and answer these and more, i have a few more of my own as well

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Hey Roman and Antje,

Do you still mail-order fresh durian and organic young coconuts? If so could you give me a link or some info please? Thanks.

Love,
Uma

wow It is funny how it is so complicated to tell somehow how to eat raw fruits veggies and nuts

To Suncloud,

We are completely aware that this reply is way overdue, but it is only now that we finally find the time to respond to some of the latest posts. We spent most of the month of August preparing an unassisted homebirth. On August 20th, Antje gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Aletheia. Here a few pictures of her only a few days old: [www.genefitnutrition.com] . Before the birth and even more so after, we consider it important to maintain a space of peace and focus in order to well receive this little angel in our lives. Therefore, we are not at all (and we never were) willing to enter into a animal right vs. meat eater cat fight. We know all too well where all this leads.

The Island Project has been in preparation for many years. Please be reassured that your concerns have already been taken care of. We are working together with highly qualified consultants in biodiversity management and conservation. As the project has a scientific aim, it will be run under a non-profit 503(c)3 status. The organization in charge of managing the Island Project has a website (even tough still under construction) [www.geneticanthropology.org] . Check-in regularly for updates. We are now very close to launching the actual project. Should you be GENUINELY interested in what we are trying to achieve you are welcome to subscribe to our newsletter by using the link at the bottom of each page on our website. We will make several important announcements in the near future.

According to your post it seems that our previous message may not been entirely clear. Again, at the risk of repeating ourselves here is our position on the issue that seems to be dominating the present topic.

In the past, during the course of our research, we switched back and forth several times between a raw vegan and raw non-vegan lifestyle in order to make observations and gather accurate data from both sides. Ourselves aside, over the years we have had the opportunity to made numerous observations with people applying GeneFit in a vegan context. Mainly because of the pregnancy and the recent arrival of our daughter, we are currently not vegan. We carefully weighted out our decision with all knowledge we had currently available in terms of pre-natal and post-natal deficiency risks in vegan mothers and newborns. For example, see Gabriel Cousens article on this website: [www.living-foods.com] . For the future: Will we apply a vegan diet again for a certain period of time? We can surely say yes. Will we any time soon commit to a vegan lifestyle for the rest of our lives? Considering the current scientific knowledge on the issue, we have to say no. However, we are open to the possibility if circumstances should change.

Taking supplements has never been an option for us, because, in our opinion, a diet that cannot readily provide all the necessary nutrients to sustain optimal human health and instead requires one to be dependent on the vitamin industry can, by definition, not be the diet that matches our genetic make-up. However, we still believe that it is important to remain open-minded about all these issues as a clear-cut solution has not yet been found.

Eating our feces, as it has been suggested in some vegan circles, is not an option either, because we do not find any instinctive attraction to do so as we have for other foods. Also, human beings unlike gorillas or other animals seems to have an instinctive drive to clearly separate feces from the foods they eat and their living space. One may argue that this occurrence might be of cultural origin, however at this point, we believe that it rather suggests that we are, genetically speaking, not designed for such thing.

This said we have question for you in return. In previous post you seem to suggest that a person who is not fully committed to a vegan lifestyle, but is sympathetic and respectful of the vegan approach should not post on this forum. Is that what you meant? We sincerely hope not because it would only confirm a sectarian and dogmatic attitude, which usually comes together with unfair censorship. As far as the topic of respecting the rules of the forum is concerned, we also wanted to point out that we did not at any point raise the issue of meat eating unless pushed to do so by other members. We never "attacked" the vegan lifestyle nor did we promote meat-eating or encouraged anybody in doing the same. All we did is mentioning that the GeneFit concept is applicable vegan and non vegan either way. We trust that the all people on this board are able to exercise enough critical thinking to take the information they need and leave whatever does not fit their beliefs or lifestyle behind.

Discussions about whether animal foods should or should not be included in one's raw diet are more often than not, futile. Becoming hipped up about it while trying to force others to change their ways because of moral or religious considerations is at best inappropriate and even sometimes completely out of line. Again, as of yet there is no absolute proof that a vegan diet is the diet that fits the human genome. And again, the same holds true for the opposite. At this point in time, anyone who claims having found the ideal human diet (the one we are genetically designed for) and at the same time excludes upfront the possibility that animal foods might be a necessary element does not base his research on true science, but simply a philosophy or sometimes even worse, a dogma away from dietary considerations. Genomic research will sooner or later help us determine for certain if human beings are designed for the consumption of animal foods and if animal foods, even in the smallest amounts, are required for optimal human health. Until then, for the sake of intellectual honesty and in order to avoid any possible mistakes, we are in favor of a non-discriminatory stand and therefore remain open and sympathetic to both approaches.

Even tough, we come almost entirely from a nutritional standpoint, we do understand the animal rights issues and we can totally respect and even identify with all those involved in this noble cause (as long as they don't use it as a channel of expression for neurotic destructivity and life frustrations), however if further research should beyond any doubt reveal that animal foods are naturally part of the ideal human diet, there is also a undeniable right for one to nourish his or her body (and the one of his or her children) according to his or her own genetic make-up. In this case, the dilemma of not wanting to hurt animals and at the same needing the nutrients does not come from the perspective of volition (or free will), but rather from Nature itself. This very topic gets even more acute if we consider that there might be different genetic constitutions among different individuals (according to blood type for example, which itself is the results of evolutionary migrations). This may explain why some individuals do better on a vegan diet than others. In any case, it is too early to conclude and whatever one's choice is for moral and religious consideration is a entirely different story.

Concerning the other subjects you have raised, we use the term "raw" within its official meaning, namely "unprocessed state." We even use it more accurately than what is commonly done for most of the rawfood scene since we don't do any recipes nor processing. In our non-discriminatory approach, we always considered raw as simply being the common denominator between all rawfood approaches whether vegan or not.

This has been a long post. Sorry for that. We hope it answers the most urgent questions. We hope to be back some time soon even tough it may take a little while.

Much love,
R&A

Hi Uma,

Yes, we still do provide fresh durian and organic young Thai coconuts via mail order, however we want to respect the rules of the forum and don't feel comfortable discussing or promoting any of this here. Send us an email in private and we'll get you covered

info@genefitnutrition.com

Much love,
R&A

Roman and Antje congratulations on your baby , very cute pics .. babies and hammocks seem to go together dont they?.

Roman you say our concerns have already been taken care of and questions answered but you dont say how or what... Above are some very valid questions please expand on this .. saying they are taken care of doesnt say anything at all. The management company you say is underconstruction points to your website so if what your saying is you are your own company is the management company again that doesnt tell us anything. Who are the highly qualified consultants?

to answer your question .. im not sure who that is aimed at but i personally cant see where anyone suggested that you shouldnt post here .. but there are omni boards where those conversations would be more welcome if you want to discuss the merits of eating animal products as this is a vegan board

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2007 04:16PM by Jgunn.

also that you are applying for non-profit 503(c)3 status, this leads me to beleive you are based out of the u.s.a? correct or ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2007 04:31PM by Jgunn.

. I think Roman and Antje did a good job of staking out their opinions and ground. no need to push against honest folks doing the good that they believe.

. and really...who knows?