Instinctotherapy: An Essay on the Human Food Instinct and a Definition of Instinctotherapy

Part 1

Gustatory Alliesthesia

It was a chance observation that sparked this experiment: during a trip across the United States, not particularly fond of standard cuisine and living on a shoestring budget in my hotel rooms, I noticed that a cabbage I was carrying with my provisions changed taste from one day to the next. Initially thinking it was due to the vegetable drying out or aging, I had to abandon this explanation when I observed that one day the cabbage seemed perfectly palatable, the next day a repulsive taste made it impossible to eat, then the following day the taste was pleasant again, and so on.

I noticed in particular that this same phenomenon of gustatory apathy could occur during a single intake: the taste of the vegetable shifted, in a clearly defined manner, from pleasant to unpleasant.

The inescapable conclusion was as follows: the taste of cabbage is not solely intrinsic to the nature of the vegetable, but its perception also depends on the consumer’s state. Further observations demonstrated that olfactory perception is subject to similar variations.

From there, it was a short step to postulating that the taste and smell of food appear pleasant when they correspond to a bodily need, and unpleasant otherwise: there would be instinctive mechanisms in humans, manifesting at the level of taste and smell perception, such that beneficial food is perceived as attractive to taste and smell, and harmful or superfluous food as repulsive or neutral.

This working hypothesis also accounted for the fact that the taste of food could change abruptly during ingestion: probably at the moment when the organic deficiency was potentially compensated for, and this by mechanisms that remained to be To elucidate.

Two Classes of Food

This very simple principle unfortunately proved inapplicable to a large number of foods: chocolate, for example (even Swiss chocolate taken to the USA), could be consumed without any noticeable change in taste, despite being consumed in excessive quantities.

Upon returning to Europe, my colleagues and I decided to examine this problem systematically, and a fairly long series of observations allowed us to identify two classes of foods:

• foods whose ingestion is associated with a distinctly biphasic change in taste,
• foods that retain a practically constant taste.

The first class included essentially raw foods: raw fruits, unseasoned raw vegetables, raw mushrooms, raw seeds, raw fish, raw seafood, raw eggs, raw meat, natural honey, etc.

The second class included all commonly prepared foods: bread, pasta, soups, Cooked vegetables, dressed salads, milk, dairy products, cooked or grilled meats, prepared fish, etc.

Faced with this very clear differentiation, the following hypothesis was put forward, linking the possible mechanisms of a food instinct in humans to their phylogenetic origin: gustatory and olfactory aliesesthesia would be an attraction-repulsion mechanism through which the food instinct is expressed, but this instinct would only function correctly with foods to which it is genetically adapted.

Indeed, if we accept that an “instinctive apparatus” exists in humans as in animals, and if we consider it as a kind of servomechanism whose structures, undoubtedly very complex, have developed through mutations and natural selection; if we also accept that human genetics changes only very slowly over time, and if we provisionally disregard learning phenomena, the importance of which will remain to be evaluated later, It is clear that this feeding instinct and its gustatory, olfactory, and other mechanisms first adapted to the foods that were part of the primitive environment, through contact with which this evolution could take place.

There is no a priori reason why these mechanisms, in their innate components, should be “pre-adapted” to foods possessing new organoleptic and biochemical characteristics.

Limits of Genetic Adaptation

The problem then became determining the relationship between primitive and new foods. How long would a genetic adaptation have taken to modify the instinctive apparatus in such a way that it functions flawlessly with a food newly introduced into the environment?

Considering the history of humankind and its nutrition, it was plausible to retain the following ideas: human genetics change very slowly, if we consider, for example, its very close relationship to that of anthropoid apes, whose metabolic, enzymatic, and immunological characteristics are very similar to our own. Yet the separation of the human-ape lineages dates back some 30 million years. However, the primary cause of the expansion of the human diet is culinary innovation; this occurred after the mastery of fire, or the advent of Homo sapiens, events that are relatively recent. The widespread use of cooking, in particular, cannot predate the Neolithic period, for obvious technical reasons.

It is therefore reasonable to posit that the current genetic data of this instinctive apparatus were inherited, for the most part, from very ancient times—primates themselves having inherited them from less differentiated mammals—and that they were capable of evolving to adapt, for example, our ancestors to the changes in climate and vegetation affecting their environment, phenomena that unfolded over geological timescales.

However, from the very emergence of conceptual intelligence, humankind has been able to alter the structure of its food very drastically compared to the biological timescale, and it continues to do so today every time a new recipe or processing method is invented.

The questions that then arise are:

• Whether these new organoleptic and biochemical factors require, in order to be integrated without harm by the organism, a readaptation of its genetics through a process of mutation and selection;
• Whether this adaptation has had time to occur for each of the new factors that require it;
• Whether such adaptation is possible, which is not necessarily the case for every factor, as variants of the genetic code inherently have limitations.

Original Food and Pro-Genetic Food

The various methods by which Homo sapiens has modified its diet can be divided into five categories:

• Thermal denaturation: all methods of cooking or processing through raising the temperature, modifying the biochemical structures of nutrients and/or the organoleptic properties of specific foods; lowering the temperature under conditions that do not occur in the natural environment (or only accidentally), such as freezing and deep-freezing.
• Mechanical denaturation (with the exception of chewing) such as grinding, extraction, separation, mixing, layering, and seasoning. These modifications of raw food do not occur regularly without the intervention of conceptual intelligence: one must mentally visualize the foods one wants to mix, such as tomato and salt, date and almond, etc. Wild animals typically consume their food one after the other.
• Animal milk and dairy products, which have enriched the human diet in a relatively short time, with livestock domestication dating back some 8,000 years.
• Food chemistry, which is certainly the most recent of these “culinary” innovations.
• Finally, artificial selection: the food plants that humans have gradually surrounded themselves with have been selected for their yield qualities, but also for their palatability, which can pose a problem at the level of the mechanisms of the food instinct: all things considered, selection is also a factor of biochemical and organoleptic transformation.

We can then define:

• The “original” food: as hominins found it in their natural environment, without the intervention of any artifice related to conceptual intelligence;
• “Pro-genetic” food: food that has undergone a possible modification by an artificial means, but in a manner that is not significant enough to still correspond to the genetic data of the organism, both in terms of instinctive mechanisms and metabolism.

Overall Observations

A long series of observations involving approximately 500 volunteers of various ages (0 to 90 years) was undertaken to determine the extent to which the postulate of a food instinct in humans could be confirmed or refuted with regard to “pro-genetic” foods, without, however, excluding, for understandable practical reasons, foods resulting from artificial selection.

In order to conduct the experiment as rigorously as possible and to avoid any interaction with extraneous phenomena, these individuals strictly abstained, for periods ranging from a few months to twelve years or more, from consuming any non-“pro-genetic” foods (bread, milk, tea, coffee, chocolate, wine, pasta, soups, prepared foods, and all types of cooked food).

The permitted foods included all local fruits, exotic fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, meat, fish and seafood, honey, pollen, aromatic plants, etc. obtained under the most natural conditions possible, and consumed in their raw and isolated state.

The observation focused primarily on the nature and quantitative modulation of the foods chosen according to individual needs, and on the clinical consequences, which were particularly interesting in individuals with various illnesses who joined the group.

As a counter-test, a parallel experiment was conducted on a number of mice (approximately 800 AJ, C3H, and C57), on about sixty wild voles, and on other domestic animals (poultry, pigs, sheep, and cattle), totaling approximately 1,500, placed under various feeding conditions.

The resources deployed were limited by the insurmountable difficulty, at least in Switzerland, of obtaining funding for an experiment that was perhaps too avant-garde. However, it was possible to draw a number of conclusions and hypotheses, the main ones of which we summarize here concerning instinct and nutritional balance.

Short- and long-term clinical observation shows that humans possess a nutritional instinct as reliable as that of domestic animals, at least for “pro-genetic” foods.

Homeostasis of the internal environment, self-regulation of vitamin intake, and caloric balance, as well as the balance of the protein-carbohydrate-fat ratio, spontaneously converge toward optimal values, practically without exception, even in subjects with a history of significant metabolic or digestive disorders.

Digestive problems (such as dyspepsia, constipation, hyperphagia, or childhood anorexia) resolve within a few days in most cases.

Intestinal parasites are generally eliminated as soon as the diet is modified. In this regard, in a group of 600 mice infected with a strongyle parasite affecting the liver and lungs, no cysts were found among 160 subjects fed a raw diet, whereas a significant percentage were found in all other experimental groups. The addition of a single non-pro-genetic food (cow’s milk, cooked cereals, puree, etc.) to the same basic diet was sufficient to determine susceptibility to parasites. Weight balance, obesity, cellulite, and muscle atrophy are, in most cases, restored to normal or improved after a period ranging from 6 months to 2 years. Children fed under these conditions from birth exhibit optimal growth and psychomotor development, as well as a particular resistance to childhood illnesses and infections. Let us mention in passing a surprising observation: the activity of the nail matrix appears to be regulated in such a way that the nail length stabilizes and requires neither wear nor manicure (observed in children up to 6 years old who consumed only the pro-genetic diet, and in some adults after several years of experience).

These facts thus demonstrate that the interplay of attraction-repulsion mechanisms allows for the achievement or maintenance, in the long term, of a perfect overall balance. We have never observed any deficiency, metabolic or digestive overload, nor any disorder attributable to poor regulation of food intake. Conversely, by deliberately pushing the limits indicated by these mechanisms, digestive problems easily appear (dyspepsia, aerophagia, heartburn, emesis, etc.).

This demonstrates the coherence of these mechanisms, and at the same time the existence of a feeding instinct adapted to the foods of the primitive environment. But a remarkable phenomenon allows us to assign it a direct role in the control of homeostasis: its correlation with inflammatory pain.

Pain: a criterion of balance

In pain as it ordinarily presents itself, during a dislocation, a burn, an injury, a fracture, etc. We can distinguish two phases: “primary” pain, a signal indicating that a particular limb or organ is in danger, occurring at the very moment of the injury; and “secondary” pain, prolonging the former or being superimposed upon it as a result of an inflammatory reaction.

Experience shows that instinctive balancing causes the disappearance of all pain of this second category.

As surprising as it may seem, it only takes slightly exceeding the amplitudes determined by taste mechanisms, particularly with foods rich in sugars, to observe the reappearance of latent inflammatory pain: headaches, toothaches, angina, etc. This secondary pain, in fact unnecessary, thus appears clearly linked to a denaturation and/or excess of carbohydrates. This could also explain the variability of the pain threshold from one individual to another, or from one moment to another, depending on variations in dietary imbalance, caused by the instinctive maladaptation to ordinary food.

This This phenomenon makes it very easy to detect dietary imbalances and provides a valuable criterion for distinguishing between pro-genetic and unsuitable foods: for example, air-dried fruit below 40°C poses few problems, whereas fruit dried at high temperatures is enough to trigger inflammatory pain; similarly, mashed fresh bananas, freshly squeezed orange juice, grated apples, oven-dried dates, hot-aged honey, as well as raw, salted, or simply minced meat, etc.

This reveals, on the one hand, the extraordinarily precise functioning of these self-regulating mechanisms, and on the other hand, their limitations. Initially, one might conclude that the instinctive apparatus in humans is genetically adapted to the foods of the environment prior to the intervention of culinary manipulation, and that it has not undergone the mutations necessary to adapt it to foods even very similar to the raw food.

This explains the enormous difficulty in untangling the problem in the face of dogma. of traditional gastronomy, and the general belief that this instinct is lost, or at least considerably disrupted, in humans.

Animal experimentation has been instructive as a counter-example: even wild field mice, from which one might have expected the most reliable instinctive behavior, became severely unbalanced upon contact with “civilized” food. Within a few weeks, some animals became obese, others cachectic, and this with the same menu offered to them. Metabolic disturbances, likely due to the enzymatic incompatibility of these rodents with the biochemical characteristics of cooked food, undoubtedly compounded the imbalance of instinctual origin. In most cases, death was rapid (within a few weeks), whereas test animals fed raw food only showed some problems after several months in captivity (probably a protein deficiency, due to a lack of insects or arachnids). This confirms that this is the state of the Food, and not the consumer’s state, is the cause of the instinctive disorder. Surprisingly, the wild field mouse, deprived of the food that would satisfy its instinctive “call,” and confronted with other natural foods that could at least compensate for its caloric deficit, generally starves itself to death. At first glance, the selectivity of its feeding instinct takes precedence over its self-preservation instinct. Domesticated mice react much less clearly.

Part 2

“Taste for” and “taste for”

It should be noted that interpreting an animal’s instinctive behavior is difficult when the experimenter has not personally experienced the workings of these mechanisms. The following remarks should be made regarding these mechanisms: With genetically modified foods, the concepts of “taste for” and “taste for,” commonly used in animal ethology, lose their meaning.

It is inaccurate to say that a banana, for example, has the “taste of a banana,” because this taste varies from one extreme, delectable and fragrant, to another, acrid and astringent, depending on the subject’s condition. One could, at most, speak of the “taste of a banana when the instinctive call is positive.” But here again, the definition is tricky, because this taste varies in its nuances according to the specific characteristics of the consumer’s state: sweet, bitter, spicy, and other components can elicit a virtually indefinite variety of flavors, depending on various deficiencies and excesses, so it’s better to speak of a “gustatory response” or “palatability response” to bananas. This response coordinates not only the components of gustatory and olfactory perception, but also the tactile perception of texture: coconut can sometimes appear soft, sometimes dry and stringy, and eggshells can sometimes even seem melting.

The notion of “taste of,” as an objective or projective datum, seems to stem from the fact that a food to which the human instinctive apparatus is not adapted, such as bread, produces certain stimuli on our external chemoreceptors. Due to the absence of a central response capable of modifying perception, these stimuli cause us to always experience the same sensation: the stimuli thus escape normal perceptual interpretation, which cannot be based on the genetic programming of attraction-repulsion when the food falls outside the adaptive range of the instinctive apparatus.

On the other hand, even the taste of a natural food does not vary significantly when consumed alongside a traditional diet: the latter induces a relatively constant metabolic state in a given individual, implying that they always experience the same “taste of” banana, due to a continuous overload or saturation with carbohydrates, for example.

This “taste for” obviously varies from one subject to another, but comparison is difficult; and above all, it is not customary to take these phenomena into consideration. Hence the possibility of using the same name for perceptions that are in fact different from one subject to another, and the genesis of the pseudo-concept “taste of,” considered as an invariant objective characteristic of food.

An exceptional circumstance is required for a response from the instinctive system to significantly alter taste perception in the same traditionally fed subject. This can be observed, for example, during the incubation of viral hepatitis, where the familiar tastes of natural products are no longer present, regardless of the patient’s efforts to recall them. Disgusting, “pharmaceutical” flavors appear and would, in fact, lead the patient, even before the crisis, to adopt a diet beneficial to their liver. The use of processed foods allows them to bypass this and worsen their prognosis, without benefiting from the advantages of this kind of spontaneous therapy. The same observation can be made in early pregnancy: the so-called whims of pregnant women (cravings for strawberries, etc.) stem from an attempt to… The feeding instinct tends to establish a favorable balance during gestation; forcing this natural barrier with “unresponsive” foods often results in vomiting, a second protective measure that confirms the validity of the first.

In such “emergency” situations, it is possible to observe that the “taste for” undeniably varies according to the consumer’s condition, and is therefore not an objective datum intrinsically linked to the food. Unfortunately, since this occurs on exceptional occasions, this change in reactance is not commonly considered for critical observation or rational interpretation in terms of instinct, but is instead attributed either to a peculiarity of the food in question or to a psychological factor.

As for the notion of “taste for,” it also loses its meaning in relation to the original foods: it is impossible to experience a “taste for” bananas if the gustatory response to bananas is negative (bitter and off-putting), nor a “Disgust for” if the answer is yes (this is certainly the case within the context of a pro-genetic diet).

With a plate of pasta, however, one can distinguish the “taste of” noodles, which remains essentially the same, from the “taste for” noodles, linked to the enjoyment of eating them. When this dislike turns into “disgust for” noodles, it’s a feeling of nausea, or a physiological rejection at a level of saturation, which has nothing to do with the change in direct taste perception that interests us here.

The Hedonic Factor

Thus, with primal foods, and provided the subject is in an appropriate state, these two notions merge: the “taste for” the food is determined univocally by the “taste of” the food, and varies accordingly. The hedonic factor, however, remains independent: linked to memories of organic satisfaction or psycho-affective projection, it clearly stems from learning.

The gustatory response nevertheless satisfactorily limits the extent of food intake; the increase due to positive hedonic stimulation can be estimated at only 5 to 10%, an increase explained by the psychological facilitation of digestive potential and remaining, in itself, an instinctive reaction to the internal situation. In other words, the innate mechanism of the palatability response clearly prevails over hedonic learning. Moreover, if one tries to exceed the limit indicated by a negative palatability response, one encounters the emergence of Sensations ranging from mild to painful—acidity, burning, astringency, dryness, glossitis, etc.—can create an insurmountable barrier.

It should be noted that a slight excess, under hedonic influence, automatically results, due to the induced overload, in a decreased palatability response upon subsequent ingestion. However, this self-regulation occurs without any perceptible unpleasantness and cannot be interpreted as a behavioral reaction: the automatic response compensates for the hedonic “prejudice” independently of any conditioning process.

Similarly, it is worth noting that the establishment of vicious cycles such as alcoholism or drug addiction, which stem from hedonic factors, has not been found with genetically specific foods. The acridity that a whole fermented grape, for example, develops when consumed in excess, “stops” in a way that is not found with wine, and which immediately protects against any risk. habituation.

Conversely, some unpleasant memory associated with a food can lead to avoiding it even though it is necessary; in this case, the situation is more problematic, because without ever subjecting it to a palatability test, or at least to the sense of smell, one obviously cannot recognize its suitability: a “negative” hedonic factor is thus likely to induce a deficiency.

The Innate Nature of Preferences and Aversions

A direct, objective experiment demonstrates the innate nature of the feeding instinct: simply present newborns (born to mothers fed, if possible, using our method) with a range of genetically specific foods, passing them one after the other near their noses while their eyes are still closed. Two reactions are observed: either the baby does not react; or its mouth opens as soon as its sense of smell has perceived the food, by the same automatic response as the mouth of an adult. A dog unexpectedly presented with a fragrant treat.

A baby, not yet able to coordinate its movements to express acceptance or refusal, already possesses this reflex, separate from the cardinal direction reflex. This is rarely observed under ordinary conditions, as it requires that the baby not be overfed and that the food offered be likely to stimulate it positively (a conditioned baby opens its mouth at the approach of the bottle, but in the first few days, it only reacts to the contact of the teat, not to the smell of the rubber!).

For example, we presented a newborn, within six hours of birth and before any ingestion of breast milk, with a selection of pro-genetic foods, successively pre-chewed by its mother and then spoon-fed. The newborn, who thus ingested half a banana, a slice of papaya, and a portion of raw tuna, subsequently showed no signs of any reaction. Digestive upset or other issues; the aforementioned experiment continued from the very next day and to this day, alongside breastfeeding during the first year: the child is now 6 years old, enjoys perfect health, and is developing very satisfactorily. This experiment has since been repeated in several cases, always with the same short- and long-term success.

For any unwanted food, the refusal is very clear; if one forces it at the lips, the baby immediately turns its head away; if one nevertheless introduces the food into the mouth, its tongue causes it to be expelled with a movement similar to the teeth of a sewing machine in reverse. Thus, in addition to the sucking reflex, we can observe an ingestion reflex and a rejection reflex ready to activate within the first few hours after birth, provided that the appropriate stimuli are present.

In a large number of cases, we have never observed a baby accepting a pro-genetic food that is uncomfortable or harmful in any way.

However, this self-regulation is not reliable with ordinary foods; excessive freedom can then lead to nutritional imbalances, or even serious adverse events. The very precise, selective, and perfectly coherent reaction of the baby upon first contact with “original” food, before any possibility of learning, therefore confirms that this is an innate phenomenon: the organism seems to be equipped with a kind of instinctive computer, programmed for the foods to which evolution has adapted its genetics. Furthermore, in adults who transition seamlessly from a traditional diet to a pro-genetic diet, we observe that the instinctive palatability response mechanisms emerge rapidly. They exhibit satisfactory functional coherence, most often within just a few days. If a genetically unfamiliar food is subsequently introduced, such as an exotic fruit, a wild berry, or even a poisonous mushroom, the palatability response is correct from the first encounter, without requiring any learning. However, it is observed that even a slight modification (layering, pre-warming, adding salt, applying a customary recipe, etc.) to any pro-genetic food, whether already known or not, is enough to clearly disrupt regulation, bringing back inflammatory pain or any other imbalance.

It must therefore be concluded that these are innate mechanisms; otherwise, they would require a certain learning period when faced with a new pro-genetic food, containing, for example, a toxic substance not detectable by the senses. Conversely, they should be able to react correctly to a modified food, which is ultimately closer to the data assumed to have been acquired through learning in subjects who have previously practiced a traditional diet.

Impact of the Visual Factor

It is always difficult to separate the roles of nature and nurture. In this regard, it may be interesting to recount a significant observation: in a batch of newly hatched chicks, we noticed that one of them, each time it tried to grasp a seed with its beak, pecked the ground 6-7 mm short of the target. Thinking it was a learning delay, we tried to retrain the bird by all sorts of means: the bird would have perished in the flock, its competitors obviously eating everything within reach. Even when provided, for example, with fly pupae in a tilted slide designed to progressively narrow the field of fire and encourage the chick—which always hit a different pupa than the one it aimed for—to adjust its sensorimotor coordination through numerous experiments, the result was utterly nil: after three months, it was still pecking 7 mm off target and, returned to the flock, succumbed to malnutrition.

This demonstrates, on the one hand, the extreme precision of a complex chain of sensorimotor mechanisms encompassing the retinal image, the position of the eye, head, legs, etc., and on the other hand, their strictly innate nature: from the very first day, the chick reacts to the triggering pattern of “pupa” or “worm” and pecks with the same precision as it does in adulthood, without requiring any learning, but also without being capable of any learning. At best, it learns not to risk its way towards dangerous targets, but for this to happen, it needs to register a series of fairly significant impressions. Even when regularly chasing the chicks away when they peck at the experimenter’s fingernails, evoking some kind of triggering pattern for them, the deterrent effect is practically nil.

However, it can be observed that a chick that has pecked at a seed or larva rejects it when its ingestion is unlikely to compensate for a deficiency, after quickly turning it over in its beak, therefore probably as a result of a negative gustatory response. The gustatory or palatability mechanism thus remains the primary mechanism of rejection; vision seems to play the dominant role in these birds in stimulating searching or grasping behavior that smell plays in other animals: we have never observed, for example, a cat keeping watch outside an uninhabited, and therefore odorless, vole burrow. A fascinating study could be conducted, starting with the definition of the “original” environment, on the feeding ethology of animals in relation to the combined senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing, and even the trigger patterns that allow them to identify their prey based on specific kinetics (a mechanism clearly evident in certain cases of confusion: the bottle cap-string misinterpretation for cats, bait misinterpretation for fishing, etc.). Such systematic research would allow us to understand and prevent certain nutritional disorders that could be fatal to the survival of a species, resulting from ecological changes that are sometimes negligible at first glance, such as the olfactory disturbances in fish caused by wastewater treatment plant effluents, the imbalances in fauna induced by the expansion of selected cereal crops, etc.

In humans, the visual factor seems to play a contingent role. However, certain perceptual variations in the brightness of a fruit’s colors can be observed that correspond to a deficiency. Experimentation is delicate, as it borders on the realm of autosuggestion. However, it is known that, under the influence of certain drugs, the brightness and vibrancy of colors are altered at the level of perception: such a mode of expression of the feeding instinct should not be dismissed outright.

It may be masked and distorted by upbringing, by artificial colors, and especially by its projection onto a food environment too far removed from the hereditary framework of learning potential: baby bottles and baby food do not offer their introjection mechanisms the shapes and hues characteristic of natural foods.

Part 3

Kinesthetic Learning

In children who practice pro-genetic feeding from a very young age, we observe a coupling of the sight of a given food, and then its mental representation, with the kinesthetic sensation of the momentary deficiency: the feeling of a particular need allows them to choose, without tasting it, and even to evoke without seeing it, the appropriate food.

It seems that this is not a purely instinctive process, but rather a middle ground between nature and nurture. One could invoke the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy, pre-existing the accomplishment of the instinctive act, constituted by a little-differentiated innate schema into which external stimuli are incorporated to structure its definitive figuration. The fruit, for example, would be fantasized as an extension of the need for water, sugars, etc., through a diffuse prefiguration of its general characteristics: roundness, color, juicy and flavorful texture; the organo-aesthetic satisfaction, inscribed at the intersection between the fantasy and the perception of the real fruit, sanctioning their coincidence and sanctioned by the fulfillment of the need, would be the function responsible for introjecting the characteristics of the particular fruit. Thus, the innate instinctive feeding program would be structured in such a way as to allow us to know, without any contact with food, what food to seek. The joy a baby shows at the sight of either a fruit they have never tasted, or a brightly colored ball, for example, supports this psychodynamic thesis.

After several years of practice, adults also manage, to some extent, to anticipate the appearance and taste of the food that meets their needs, although the gustatory response is often not what they expected: someone who dreams of the return of a particular fruit’s season may find themselves unable to eat it when the time comes; sometimes the craving for a juicy fruit is thwarted by its acidity and turns out to be nothing more than a need for water.

As with any instinctive program, there is probably a “sensitive period” in childhood for this kinesthetic learning, after which it becomes very imperfect, necessitating the use of direct smell or taste. This notion of a sensitive period also explains the almost indelible fixation of certain sometimes harmful eating habits acquired in youth through contact with traditional foods (cravings for sweets, starchy foods, etc.).

Non-progenetic foods are indeed introjected with gustatory satisfaction, which is not necessarily associated with the actual satisfaction of a physiological need; the structuring of the instinctive apparatus is thus profoundly distorted: we seek to rediscover the food whose image was associated with gustatory gratification, even though its nutritional characteristics in no way correspond to the deficiency that the original food bearing that taste could compensate for. A split thus occurs between sensory satisfaction and organic satisfaction, or between desire and need. In fact, from the very first food experiences, the image of the nurturing parents is introjected with this same split: we thus find around the food instinct the same mechanisms as around the sexual instinct, repressed during its Oedipal phase. This opens a new field of research for psychoanalysis regarding disorders of early ego structuring and allows for the definition of a Freudian approach to the problem of eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia, etc.).

Aversions and Learning

The learning that one is tempted to invoke to explain food preferences and aversions, or their possible readjustment, seems less than convincing in the context of a pro-genetic diet. It is certainly possible to create a conditioned reflex through exposure or intoxication accompanying the assimilation of a particular food. However, this is a massive intervention that is not of the same order of magnitude as the discomfort following an improperly measured or imperfectly chosen intake. It does not seem possible to induce, from such experiences, the refined differentiation observed in palatability responses.

On the other hand, discomfort, if it exists, depends on the consumer’s condition, which is variable. Learning aversions should therefore register discomfort based on data from not only external but also internal chemoreceptors, which would require a large number of trials to incorporate the full two-dimensional range of possible circumstances.

Learning preferences, however, should occur based on a noticeable improvement in well-being; that is, a few hours after a meal, the fulfilled deficiency should be perceptibly registered, which is rarely the case: we eat before experiencing deprivation. This would particularly preclude any valid learning alongside breast milk, which compensates for any significant deficiency in advance.

Finally, if several foods have been ingested, which is almost always the case in the period between the ingestion of the first food and intestinal absorption, how could conditioning discriminate the differential effects of successive foods or superimposed substances?

Simple behavioral conditioning is clearly insufficient to explain:

• the complexity of the observed phenomena,
• the precision of the control of food intake,
• its biphasic nature.
• its unidirectional nature (a shift from attraction to repulsion during a single intake, and never the reverse),
• the pre-existence of these manifestations prior to any food experience,
• their observable functional harmony from the first hours of life,
• the fact that regular consumption of a food systematically tends to make it repulsive before any discomfort appears,
• the fact that prolonged abstinence from a food that elicits aversion systematically makes it attractive, even upon the first subsequent intake.

It seems necessary to acknowledge a remarkably differentiated, innate, instinctive programming that coordinates palatability responses to various deficiencies. This does not preclude, however, the possibility that a certain degree of learning may be added, increasing the (somatic) capacity for adaptation to the environment. This allows, for example, the induction of a protective reflex in response to a food that would not have been part of the original range (a plant from a region far removed from the original biotope, a food that the species would not have previously obtained, an individual intolerance due to a genetic deficiency, etc.).

Now, every food introduced throughout the history of gastronomy, and sufficiently different from the raw food to escape the control of innate mechanisms, gives rise to such a learning process.

This is why, within the framework of traditional diets, learning plays, or should play, an essential role. Unfortunately, since the reflexes internalized by each individual are not, in principle, hereditary, the range of problems posed to each generation has become more complex over time, alongside the evolution of culinary arts. It’s easy to understand that a child armed only with their genetics would struggle to unravel the complexities of learning French cuisine, for example. It’s worth noting that the old tradition of eating dishes one after another may have had the advantage of facilitating a certain degree of learning about food regulation, even if these prepared dishes didn’t elicit a “palatability response” in the strictest sense.

Within the framework of traditional diets, learning also encounters the pitfalls mentioned above: poorly defined and disparate discomforts depending on the individual’s condition, insufficiently noticeable improvement in a relatively balanced individual, the inseparable effects of overlapping or successive foods, not to mention the projection of psycho-affective states and dietary beliefs.

It even risks being counterproductive: a sensory or psychological pleasure following the consumption of a food may be more directly associated with it than a harmful effect occurring at a later stage of assimilation; the harmful food will then be registered as beneficial: Learning can thus occur contrary to the actual need.

Let us note another easily observable phenomenon, which can be attributed to learning: during the first tasting of a dish prepared according to a new recipe, the impression experienced is generally at a level that is not repeated during subsequent consumption; the food would not have lived up to the promise given by its flavor. Whereas with a genetically specific food, such as an exotic fruit, the level of impression from the first encounter is rediscovered with each consumption, provided that it meets the same need of the organism.

In short, all learning can only introject environmental data onto the pre-existing structures of the instinctive apparatus; if the characteristics of the available foods deviate too far from acceptable limits, it is likely to lead to paradoxical reactions, through repression, deviation, confusion, or overstimulation of innate patterns. It is because of the disruptions caused by an inappropriate diet that we underestimate the role of nature in favor of that of nurture; whereas the food instinct, observable from birth, possesses highly differentiated structures, encompassing the entire original food range, and irreplaceable for guaranteeing perfect nutritional balance.

With traditional food, the instinctive, ill-adapted brain provides few functional taste responses; the taste of" remains inert, never constituting a barrier to the excess of a food, and can be improved at will by culinary artifice; the “taste for” translates an appetite conditioned more by habit, or by the search for satiety and gastronomic enjoyment, than by discomfort; and the hedonic factor pushes one to return to organic or commensal emotions, to which culinary and social art gives an orientation generally directed towards maximum pleasure; it is therefore not surprising that imbalance is the rule, but rather that a certain balance is able to maintain itself. The body possesses backup mechanisms that maintain caloric and even vitamin balance within acceptable limits, independently of sensory control of ingestion, as demonstrated by experiments on rats fed simultaneously orally and intravenously. However, these mechanisms do not appear to possess a selectivity and precision comparable to the sensory control discussed here, a fact easily demonstrated by the criterion of inflammatory pain. They guarantee a minimal balance.

With genetically engineered foods, things are quite different: the instinctive programming of palatability responses selectively limits the quantities consumed, based on deficiencies and digestive capacity; the hedonic factor, through learning, assumes its proper function, which consists either of guiding the individual back to foods that have previously perfectly met a need, or, more rarely, of avoiding a food associated, for a specific reason, with significant discomfort. The free play of these mechanisms is supposed to tend, for obvious phylogenetic reasons, towards an optimal nutritional balance, which is well verified by experience under the conditions we have defined.

Part 4

The so-called “balanced” diet"

It can be noted that the current trend in dietetics, which is towards a balanced diet, only partially achieves its goal.

Experience with genetic nutrition shows that needs vary from day to day infinitely more than is commonly believed, depending not only on energy, vitamin, and other expenditures, but also on metabolic and immunological processes that are still poorly understood: the dietary program changes significantly, for example, as soon as a virus is present, well before the symptomatic phase. Instinct, in this respect, constitutes an incomparable, pleasant, and inexpensive preventative therapy, as demonstrated by Richter’s experiments on rats.

The range of variation in selective modulation is sometimes surprising, especially when it comes to the goal of pro-genetic nutrition, such as compensating for previous deficiencies. We observed a former “vegetarian” who consumed some 950 eggs over a three-month period, certainly compensating for a severe protein deficiency, and then stopped abruptly.

We saw a young woman suffering from albuminuria consume two to three leeks a day for two weeks, finding them delicious, and then, as soon as she recovered, unable to tolerate a single bite. Similarly, shortly after an accident, the fruit that had seemed delicious suddenly became repulsive.

Consequently, if nutritional needs and tolerances vary greatly depending on time and the individual, a so-called balanced diet is inevitably unbalanced. No dietetics can replace the selective precision of instinct, as it is hardly possible to understand the true needs and tolerances of the body by any other means. the organism.

Conjectures on the Instinctive Computer

A troubling question is by what mechanisms the instinctive computer can assess and limit the desired amount of food ingested. The hypothesis of regulation by compensating for deficits at the metabolic level is unacceptable, because the palatability response shifts from its positive to its negative phase well before the assimilation of the ingested food can take place. There is hardly any other solution than to postulate a three-component information system, schematically:

1. Coding of deficits, and evaluation of the nature and quantity Q of a food capable of compensating them,
2. Measurement of the quantity of this food introduced into the digestive tract,
3. Identification of the nature and composition of the food being ingested.

Let’s examine each of these components more closely:

1 - Coding of Deficiencies - Evaluation of The nature and quantity Q of a food suitable for compensating for these deficiencies.

Experience undoubtedly shows that instinct tends to systematically restore the optimal balance and that it can take into account all deficiencies, as well as the subject’s digestive and assimilative capacity.

Observation of olfactory alisesthesia demonstrates that these various factors are integrated independently of any contact with food: the smell of the same fruit varies according to the subject’s condition, their deficiencies, what they have just consumed, their digestion, and even their circadian rhythm. All things considered, it can be said that the sense of smell can predict the suitability of a food, as well as its composition, since it takes into account its various components based solely on odorous substances. On the other hand, the mere fact that the palatability response becomes negative during ingestion, before any assimilation, demonstrates that the quantity Q must be assessed in advance.

This is a virtual, multifactorial, and teleonomic assessment, in that it takes into account the characteristics of the potential original foods, along with the subject’s parameters, and anticipates the possibility of satisfaction. It should be noted that the reasoning above does not consider possible regulation by limiting intestinal absorption; however, such regulation does not occur for all nutrients, as demonstrated by the induction of a metabolic imbalance.

In a child with a brain tumor, in a state of intracranial hypertension so severe that their motor function was greatly impaired, we observed the disappearance of all aliesesthesia and selectivity. It is therefore likely that brain regions are responsible for this evaluation, or necessarily contribute to it. Hyperphagia induced in rats by lesions of the medioventral nuclei of the hypothalamus, although observed without reference to the selectivity mentioned here, supports this view.

2 - How is the amount ingested measured?

Olfactory and gustatory papillae are stimulated as food passes through the mouth and during chewing. One might initially think that the exposure time of the sensory nerve endings allows the quantity of food to be determined by adding the impulses. This is not the case: whether one chews for a long time or swallows quickly (provided the taste of the food is correctly perceived), the amount accepted before the gustatory response changes remains practically unchanged. Therefore, there must be independent information regarding the actual quantity ingested, which is clearly not the case.

Stomach volume certainly does not play a decisive role, as it is only sensitive to complete distension or in states of inflammation, which has nothing to do with the fine and selective regulation in question here. It only imposes a volume limit on the meal as a whole; such a method of measurement would not allow for differentiation between the sometimes minimal quantities of various foods ingested successively. However, experience shows that this differentiation is not performed correctly if two or more foods are consumed together, overlapping them during chewing, or if a sufficient interval of time is not left between successive foods.

Through introspection and reasoning, we were led to consider the following hypothesis: during swallowing, signals, clearly perceptible to those who know how to observe themselves, are emitted as the esophagus passes through the three constrictions: at the larynx, the third thoracic vertebra, and the cardia.

This last area, in particular, has an extensible wall, whose external muscular layers are innervated by the parasympathetic nervous system (Auerbach’s plexus), and thus constitutes a functional, non-organic sphincter (cf. achalasia). A signal, proportional to the duration and amplitude of tissue dilation, and therefore to the volume of food passed, would be transmitted to the brain centers, which could then quantitatively weight the qualitative signal transmitted jointly by the oral chemoreceptors. We would therefore have a summation for the n swallows of volumes qi.

This is the simplest hypothesis that accounts for both the observed phenomena and sensory perceptions; it would not be incompatible with what we know about the “mathematical” integration capacities of our brain centers: the reduction, by external stimuli of ingestion, of the drive energies accumulated by the encoding of internal deficits would in fact solve the equation: Sum of 1 to n qi = Q

Any reduction of drive energy is accompanied by a sensation of pleasure: here, the voluptuousness accompanying swallowing; this voluptuousness disappears as soon as the palatability response reverses, that is, when the drive energy is already compensated.

3 - How do oral chemoreceptors determine the nature of food in transit, so as to evaluate Q based on its “metabolic potential”?

An unintentional experiment allowed us to observe the instinctive reaction to a poisonous berry: belladonna. Five children accustomed to our feeding method, while walking alone, discovered these beautiful black berries in a clearing. They were unfamiliar with them and were immediately tempted.

They all ate them, finding them delicious, until their palatability response reversed, meaning the fruit tasted bitter. One young girl exceeded this limit by swallowing a berry whole, thus overcoming the “instinctive barrier,” and she was the only one to experience adverse reactions. The quantities ingested ranged from two to about ten berries.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this example, among others: first, no learning was necessary to prevent the ingestion of a lethal dose of atropine; therefore, the instinctive brain is genetically programmed for belladonna, as it is for all the poisonous berries and mushrooms we have subjected to similar experiments, without them ever having undergone preliminary tests capable of creating any kind of reflex.

Second, instinct does not strictly prohibit the consumption of these so-called toxic plants; on the contrary, the response is positive below the dangerous dose, which varies considerably from one individual to another. For phylogenetic reasons, we can therefore assume that they provide certain useful elements, perhaps even their specific toxins, acting as medicines in infinitesimal quantities. In small doses, poison becomes medicine; this is one of the archaic principles of pharmacy. Thus, the food instinct allows us to benefit from the natural pharmacopoeia, eliminating the risks of an external misdiagnosis, and with a dosage that closely takes into account individual and current data.

Finally, we observe that it was not the characteristic bitterness of atropine that seemed to trigger the instinctive cessation: the berries appeared acrid, not bitter. This brings us back to our question: how do oral chemoreceptors identify the nature of a specific food, composed of multiple overlapping organoleptic and biochemical properties? In a first interpretation, we could suppose that each of the substances present in the whole food is analyzed separately. It would be tempting to imagine the taste bud as a kind of advanced pilot station, serving as a model for overall metabolism and equipped with the necessary enzymes. Informed of any deficiencies or excesses through humoral contact, it could, in a way, reflect the body’s general balance and, through immediate local compensation, transmit to the hypothalamic centers the signal indicating the suitability of the substances in transit. These centers remain competent to integrate the quantitative data.

This theory is, in any case, insufficient, because if an aromatic substance is added, or if two foods are mixed, the palatability response no longer functions correctly and allows free passage to substances in excess, as readily demonstrated by the reappearance of inflammatory pain. Similarly, if one ingests an isolated substance: the “taste of” refined sugar, for example, remains unchanged (well beyond the inflammatory threshold), whereas the taste of sugar-rich fruits (banana, grapes, etc.) changes distinctly and at the appropriate time.

It must therefore be admitted, as a first approximation, that taste and smell receptors transmit their information based on only some of the many substances composing a natural food: “indicator” substances, capable of triggering chemosensory stimulation, which we perceive as “aromatic” substances, attractive or repulsive depending on the central response.

A Cybernetic Model

The central organ of the instinctive apparatus should thus be imagined as a veritable computer, programmed as follows: for each original food, it would have, in its genetic memory, a specific “identification card,” which it would identify based on the indicator substances specific to that food, and which would allow it to predict the dosages of the various substances introduced during its ingestion. After integrating and comparing internal and external signals, it would modify the perceptual interpretation of taste and smell sensations positively or negatively. And in some cases, it would transmit a message to the taste buds, causing them to react appropriately to the indicator substances present, probably through an enzymatic regulatory process, given that local sensations of burning or irritation sometimes persist if the threshold of the negative response is pushed by ingesting the food that triggered it. In short: the instinctive computer would be programmed primarily not in terms of isolated substances, but in terms of specific foods provided by the primitive biotope. Instead of relating it to a coordinate system where each axis represents a particular chemical substance, it should be represented on axes where each axis corresponds to a different original food. More precisely, it should be represented on these two coordinate systems jointly, with the “tensorial” capacity to transfer information from one to the other: the components of the internal balance, expressed in analytical terms, would be the object of an “application” to the genetically programmed mathematical set of original foods, controlled during ingestion through their specific aromatic substances.

This representation is acceptable from a phylogenetic point of view, since every living species could have developed the genetic blueprints of its external chemoreceptors and their integration centers from the concrete foods of its primitive environment, but never from isolated substances; whereas the genetics of internal receptors could indeed have been developed from analytical data of humoral and intracellular metabolism.

Impact of the “Taste for” - Emergency Feedback

Humoral factors, however, exert a significant influence on the mechanisms of taste: the effect of an intravenous injection is felt on the tongue and can alter the palatability of certain foods; a diabetic eating a banana is generally stopped by a cloying, sickening taste, well before the appearance of the grassy, ​​astringent taste characteristic of the negative palatability response to this fruit. Other examples highlight the direct role played by blood chemistry in the generation of sensations that clearly contribute to the repulsive phase of “taste for.”

However, overall observation suggests that humoral factors do not play a role at the level of external chemoreceptors in the positive phase of “taste for” sugar. For example, an insulin injection, by lowering blood glucose levels, triggers a sensation of hunger and satiety, which fits well within what we experience as a “taste for” sugar. Rather, this process occurs at the level of the mechanisms regulating the quantity of food consumed through esophageal transit control. These mechanisms also contribute to the genesis of the aversion phase: “disgust for” sugar manifests itself apparently as a feeling of satiety, a change in taste attributable to blood feedback, further compounded by a nauseating reaction likely related to immunology.

It is worth noting that the shift from “taste for” to “disgust for” sugar is most often very gradual, contrasting with the biphasic nature of the “taste for” response to pro-genetic foods. Furthermore, it generally occurs with a delay, due to intestinal absorption, which is evident in the fact that the first intake of non-progenetic food is sometimes excessive, with regulation only taking place at the following meal. Regulation by “taste for” thus does not protect against overload; rather, it requires overload to intervene, as confirmed, for example, by the criterion of inflammatory pain.

“Taste for” and “taste for” therefore appear as the expression of two independent regulatory systems. The response of the former predominates and precedes that of the latter when the conditions are phylogenetically met. With foods that escape the central processing system’s programming, the palatability response is inhibited; the “taste for” remains inert, allowing the “taste for” to emerge, which acts as a kind of backup circuit, preventing a prolonged imbalance. This is also highly valuable in the context of progenetic nutrition when digestive or metabolic dysfunction distorts the While “predictions” of the central response are possible, they are far more prone to inaccuracy and distortion, as evidenced by the imbalances observed in the short or long term in the absence of a central response (as seen in the case of brain center inhibition mentioned above, or in traditional diets).

This brief outline demonstrates how a notion as familiar as hunger proves to be a complex phenomenon, whose various constituent mechanisms are difficult to isolate and interpret without a defined experimental setting and method that allow for their genetically normal development.

Any instinctive program confronted with an environment too far removed from phylogenetic data exhibits paradoxical functioning. Its experimental value as a countertest is evident, but its interpretation is fraught without a basic reference point. Animal experiments suffer from the same difficulty, either because the food environment is poorly defined, or because the experimenter lacks the perspective gained from these observations and necessary for interpreting the phenomena. It is for these reasons that… It is doubtful that human feeding ethology, in particular, has barely moved beyond the pre-critical stage.

The Culinary Mistake

One final remark is necessary regarding the very principle of culinary art. The feeling of satisfaction from food is linked to the integration of chemosensory stimuli from external receptors and volumetric stimuli from swallowing, and, furthermore, to the feeling of gastric well-being that occurs during proper digestion. This threefold condition normally leads the individual, situated in a “pro-genetic” food environment, to seek out foods that elicit a positive palatability response and to consume a sufficient quantity to compensate, through their swallowing sensations, for the instinctual energy associated with expressing their deficiencies, provided that their ingestion leads to a pleasant gastric sensation. They are thus guided, by olfactory attraction and the pleasure principle, to eat properly.

This triple filtering process is undermined by culinary manipulation: the addition of aromatic substances, the neutralization or thermal and chemical transformation of the indicator substances necessary for taste buds to register a negative palatability response, distorts the process and allows for the at-will experience of positive taste sensations.

Since the volumetric signal for swallowing can then be increased at will due to the absence of quantitative limitations at the level of taste, it becomes possible to experience a false sense of pleasure that in no way compensates for the actual deficiency. Furthermore, culinary reactions allow for the synthesis of particularly stimulating aromatic molecules (Maillard reaction products), whose action on chemoreceptors can be abnormally intense without corresponding to any physiological data. Finally, the gastric fullness easily obtained under these conditions will, through the impression of perfect satiety, create the illusion of satisfaction.

Cooking, in a way, involves manipulating our instinctive eating mechanisms by presenting them with carefully selected and modified foods designed to elicit a maximum of positive stimuli. These stimuli often don’t correspond to our innate programming or necessarily to the body’s actual needs and tolerances, leading to the consumption of foods unsuitable for maintaining a perfect digestive and nutritional balance. A superfluous food is inevitably harmful, either through digestive overload or metabolic overload or imbalance, and its repeated consumption will be detrimental to other foods, risking various deficiencies or disruptions in the short or long term.

In fact, the intrinsic goal of cooking is to make palatable, through artifice, what is repulsive in its natural state: thus, to make what is bad for the body pleasing to the palate.

Indeed, if we accept the functional coherence of the instinctive eating program, as verified in our observations, food that is bad in its raw state should not be consumed.

Conversely, beneficial food is already good in its raw state: there is no reason to alter it; experience even shows that it cannot taste better than in its raw state, provided the body truly needs it.

The Sin of Gluttony

Culinary art has replaced natural pleasures with artificial, non-functional ones, the ethical value of which is questionable for anyone who has experienced pro-genetic nutrition. Over time, the sensitivity of taste and smell becomes noticeably more refined; the “level of impression” rises through the disappearance of excesses and a return to instinctive appeals corresponding to real needs, appeals which are therefore more intense. This results in “aesthetic” pleasures particularly rich in textures and contrasts, devoid of aftertastes or other disruptive components. Homo sapiens has abandoned “original gastronomy” for an intelligent gastronomy, but it doesn’t seem that the change has benefited in every respect.

To conclude on a philosophical note, one could say that since conceptual intelligence allowed humans to modify their diet, they have sought artifice to obtain immediate pleasure, short-circuiting their instinctive programming with foods outside their range of adaptation; in short, they have used their intelligence to deceive their instinct. A lover of biblical language might see in this an aspect of original sin: the pursuit of pleasure through disobedience to primal laws.

Experience even shows that culinary art constitutes a kind of trap: forcing the instinctive barrier leads to overeating, the automatic consequence of which is to negatively affect the palatability response to pro-genetic foods, to the point that we can no longer consume them with normal appeal.

The decline in the level of pleasure thus leads to a search for more sophisticated prepared foods as overeating increases. This is undoubtedly the underlying driving force behind the evolution of culinary art towards ever more complex and spicy dishes, but which simultaneously undermines any attempt at genetic adaptation of instinctive mechanisms. The only result is to push organisms towards increasing overload and subject them to a growing risk of imbalance.

Moreover, foods modified to improve their palatability are also altered in their biochemical structures, leading to the absorption of certain substances that are not necessarily properly integrated by a metabolism whose mechanisms are themselves primarily adapted to the substances provided by the primitive environment. This leads to a progressive deterioration of the body’s internal environment through the incorporation of abnormal metabolites, the consequences of which appear even more serious than those resulting from instinctive nutritional imbalances. These parasitic metabolites have, in fact, been shown to qualitatively and quantitatively influence the pathology of “homo culinaris” on physiological, psychological, and even psychiatric levels, according to our observations.

Conversely, the use of a pro-genetic diet implies, in addition to restoring proper nutritional balance, a significant release of immunological potential, thanks to the elimination of these foreign substances that act as antigens. It therefore constitutes a therapy that is not only preventive but also curative, and has proven surprisingly effective in a wide variety of conditions: infectious, metabolic, autoimmune, degenerative, neoplastic, and psychosomatic diseases. This aspect of the problem alone would merit an in-depth study, which, while not within the scope of this report, is nonetheless one of the main and inevitable extensions of these new concepts based on genetic adaptation to the primitive environment.

We will limit ourselves here to giving this definition of “instinctotherapy”:

Therapy based on the normalization of the eating instinct and metabolism, capable of being extended to all instinctive or other processes affecting the economy of internal energies and exchanges with the outside world, related to the concept of genetic adaptation to a suitable environment.

Conclusion

The experience of so-called original or pro-genetic feeding demonstrates the existence in humans of an innate instinctive feeding program, the main mechanism of expression of which is the palatability response (olfactory, gustatory, and texture-related alistesthesia). Its apparent functional degeneration is attributable not to structural causes, but primarily to genetic maladaptation to a food environment whose organoleptic and biochemical properties have been altered by traditional culinary techniques, and to the resulting somatic disorders or imbalances.

The definition of pro-genetic nutrition provides an experimental and theoretical framework that could open a new avenue for understanding the ethology of feeding, in both humans and animals.

The highly differentiated nutritional balance achieved through the free play of instinctive mechanisms within an appropriate food environment, along with the metabolic and immunological normalization implied by genetic adaptation to this environment, constitutes a spontaneous therapy, instinctotherapy, whose efficacy has already been confirmed in numerous types of ailments.

Finally, the notion of genetic adaptation to the intimate structures of natural foods can serve as a heuristic in the search for deep causes of alteration of the organism’s reactivity, resulting from the accumulation of foreign substances, attributable to enzymatic or immunological inadaptation to culinary chemisms, and thus open a new perspective to medical research.