Preface to the Third Edition of ‘Eating Real Food’ by Dr. Jacques Borie

This book is a third edition of “La Guerre du Cru” which explained instinctotherapy. After some inflammatory articles in the press, this practice sparked considerable media controversy. But if you are fortunate enough to have this book in your hands, try to use it to improve your health and maintain it into old age. Just try, because success isn’t guaranteed, but the basic reasoning of “instincto” (instinctotherapy, instinctonutrition, or instinctopathy, as you prefer) stems from an extraordinary discovery by G.C. Burger, The author of the book. Read this book, especially if you are knowledgeable, with a mind open to ideas other than your own or those you have been taught. Read it first as a novel (it is not without humor), and then, if you liked it or, on the contrary, were shocked by it, reread it later with a clear head. For why shouldn’t you try it yourself once you have read about what happened to me, which I consider an invaluable stroke of luck for which I am indebted to G.C. Burger?

I have been practicing medicine for over 30 years, always in the same village, practicing a fascinating specialty, with an ever-growing clientele that I cherish and that they reciprocate. Until I was 50, I believed that one could consume any food and that, in the absence of digestive problems, our body used nutrients to its fullest potential. This was true, but it was also false. True as long as one… I’m in good health, but then why are so many of us no longer so around the age of fifty, with severe bouts of arthritis (rheumatism) for the past 15 years in my case?

I was fortunate enough to read “The Raw Food War” and attend a two-day introductory seminar on “instincto” (raw eating) by the author in Valence in October 1985. In three weeks, the ideas took root in my subconscious, which convinced my conscious mind to try the recommended “instinctive” diet. I was able to organize myself to practice it about 75% of the time (all meals raw except for two or three cooked dinners per week with family or friends).

In just a few weeks, the ashy gray complexion I’d always had became a normal rosy pink, and the excess weight (13 kg) also disappeared, even though I was still eating the same amount. The onset of fatigue is much delayed, and my previous energy levels have returned. The pains… My rheumatic aches and pains have completely disappeared (they remind me of their existence, sometimes violent but brief, the day after a “good” cooked meal).

In six months, while keeping the wrinkles of my age, my appearance has rejuvenated by 15 years, prompting questions from a few clients and colleagues.

In two years, I’ve physically regained my 20-year-old self: no need for training (no strenuous jogging) to be constantly in shape.

For example, in tennis, which I only play two to four times a month, as before, without any other sporting activity, whereas I used to play for a little over an hour with minimal movement, now I hit the ball like a madman from the very first shot to let off steam. I run around for two hours straight (at 57, after a long day at work…) without sweating, without getting out of breath, and without muscle soreness the next day (but I’m no more agile than before…). But what a pleasure it is to be able to run without any limitations on bending or extending my body. or twists like when I was 20. It’s wonderful.

The rattling noises in my knees when bending down and up have completely disappeared, except for a single small noise in my right knee when bending down.

After a few cooked meals (at conferences, for example), I can really feel the difference in my “fitness” and I can’t wait to go back to raw food. If I have a serious illness, I will continue to eat raw 100%.

It’s quite clear that not everyone who starts eating “instinctively” will be as lucky. My wife, who was in good health to begin with, had to stop after a few months; but she started again three months ago after a slight dip in her “fitness.” She’s doing very well this time. She only started in ‘85 to support me, whereas this time she decided on her own without any pressure from me.

I’m just one of the many doctors at the base, and not being particularly knowledgeable, I think I can explain with In simple terms, the action of “instinct.”

Most of our bodies struggle to metabolize (digest) cooked or processed foods completely. They encounter residues that they initially thought were assimilable, but which they cannot fully break down and therefore cannot eliminate through normal channels. It is likely that the body stores these harmful waste products according to their degree of metabolism:

• against the arterial vascular walls: atheromas, from which a large part of cardiovascular pathology stems: heart attacks, strokes, so frequent in old age and now not rare in middle age;
• between tissues: obesity due to deposits of all kinds, especially subcutaneous;
• at a more degraded stage, between cells: amyloidosis, arteriosclerosis, osteoarthritis, and other connective tissue disorders;
• even within cells when metabolism has reached a near-final stage and has thus been able to bypass the cell membrane: stealosis, leukemia, cancerous tumors, and autoimmune diseases.

By following G.C. Burger’s precepts:

• eating only raw foods (tomatoes and cherries as well as meat or oysters) that are neither mixed nor processed
• choosing the food that appeals to us most by smell and eating it as long as we find it enjoyable
• then doing the same with the remaining foods… until we are no longer hungry.

It is therefore likely:

1. That we choose the food that best suits our body at that moment according to its needs, especially if it is ill
2. That these foods, likely metabolized completely, integrate much better into our body
3. That the energy expenditure of digesting these raw foods is much less than that expended on cooked or unprocessed food by our oropharynx.

“Instinct” acts preventively: only “clean” waste is regularly eliminated through the excretory organs: intestines, kidneys, lungs, and skin. The body is thus equipped to fight external aggressors (diseases generally have a much milder form in those with “instinct”). The same applies to internal aggressors: the few “unsuitable” waste products, abnormal cells, and aged cells are easily identified and eliminated as they occur. And it is likely that one can die at one’s own time in good health without having spent years in bed.

It would seem that those who develop certain types of pathologies have inherited a digestive system that poorly metabolizes certain types of food.

And instinctotherapy, which in itself does not cure any disease, is said to act in a curative way: it gradually eliminates waste products that are “unsuitable” for the body and improperly stored (which often leads to disorders that are difficult to interpret). The body gradually regains more and more of its ability to fight the disease, and if the process is started before its defense system is too weakened, the improvement can lead to a cure, perhaps even in diseases against which we are otherwise helpless. A thesis presented in June 1989 to the Faculty of Medicine in Montpellier demonstrates the benefits of eliminating certain foods in rheumatoid arthritis.

But adopting “instincto” is not easy. In the absence of digestive problems, the advice of an elder may suffice. However, in the presence of digestive problems, according to one’s medical knowledge, a few days to a few weeks in one of the two specialized centers seems necessary. In the presence of a serious illness, stopping or reducing treatment without consulting a doctor at the beginning of a change in diet or afterward seems to me to be a suicidal approach.

To my fellow allopathic doctors, like myself, who criticize this diet almost always without knowing much about it, I would reply:

1. Natural foods change their smell (alliesthesia). We don’t know how they change smell. That’s no reason not to ask ourselves why they change smell…
2. We doctors should be modest in our certainties and our demands for scientific proof. Indeed:
   • compared to the boiling points of other liquids, water, with a molecular weight of only 18, should boil well before 100 degrees Celsius. This is a phenomenon we observe daily, but which physicists cannot yet explain; they attribute it to the particularities of hydrogen atom bonding, but without knowing the mechanism. What could be simpler than a water molecule?
   • Conversely, each of our patients is made up of approximately 100 trillion cells: each equipped with a genetic code roughly 170 cm long if unwound (one hundred and seventy centimeters), each living in isolation but each interdependent with other cells and the hormonal or other information it receives. It’s quite complex, and before demanding scientific proof of a new idea, we should experiment with it, even if it comes from a non-physician, and analyze the results.
   • And every day we prescribe certain treatments whose mechanism of action we don’t scientifically understand: for example, for psoriasis, dermatologists prescribe PUVA (ultraviolet) therapy sessions because it has been observed that sun exposure is beneficial…

Dr. Jacques Borie, dental surgeon, former intern at the Hospitals of Lyon