Instinctotherapy

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Instinctotherapy is a diet established by Guy-Claude Burger in 1964 . It is a special form of raw food , in which one relies on innate instincts in the choice of food .

Burger assumes that the human organism is still able to determine the current value of a certain food for the body with the help of its sense of smell and taste , as long as it is natural. He is convinced that humans have strayed too far from their natural way of life and diet by consuming cooked and processed food.

According to Burger, the food must be raw food and must not be denatured by any thermal or chemical processes or even radiation . A mechanical change is also ideally avoided. In addition, foods are not mixed together. In contrast to many other raw food styles, all non-denatured food may be eaten, including meat and fish , as long as it is raw.

theory

From Burger's point of view, instinctotherapy represents a kind of long-term experiment, which investigates the question of the genetic maladjustment of the human organism to today's diet.

In contrast to other raw food diets, the selection and quantity of the food to be consumed is based exclusively on the attraction and repulsion signals, which appear individually very differently as smell + salivation reflex (when choosing) and taste (when consuming).

From experience, Burger formulated the law of the nutritional instinct:

Every original food that is attractive to the sense of smell and taste is beneficial to the organism. The same applies vice versa: Harmful or useless foods are generally repulsive to the sense of smell and / or taste.
This law is based on the pleasure principle ( eng pleasure principle.) - a theory of classical psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud .

Theory of genetic adaptation to an original food environment

From the theory of evolution it is deduced that an animal which would be induced by its instinct to eat poisonous plants or to eat an unbalanced diet would quickly succumb and fall victim to natural selection. The nutritional instinct had to perfect itself over time to the same extent as any other function of the organism over the course of millions of years.

“Original” and “progenetic” foods

Guy-Claude Burger made a distinction in 1974 in his Essai sur l'instinct alimentaire chez l'homme et définition de l'instinctothérapie :

  • "Original" foods ( fr aliment "originel."): Those which the great apes in their natural habitat vorfanden without application of conceptual intelligence
  • and "progenetic" foods ( fr . aliment "pro-génétique"): foods that have been changed by an "artifice" (such as selection ), but not to the extent that they no longer function completely with the alliesthetic and metabolic mechanisms would.

Types of "accepted" foods

Burger argues that human physiology ( sense of smell and taste , digestion , metabolism ) is optimally adapted to foods that existed before the invention of agriculture and livestock , preferably wild plants and game .

Vegetable origin

  • Fruits (tropical, subtropical, from temperate climates)
  • Vegetables (roots, leaves)
  • Herbs
  • legumes
  • nuts
  • Grain (restricted: without wheat)
  • Seaweed


Of animal origin

  • country
    • flesh
    • Wild
    • Offal
    • Beekeeping products
  • water
    • Fresh water (fish, shellfish)
    • Salt water (fish, shellfish)

Forms of denaturation of food

Modern nutrition is based on the so-called Neolithic Revolution around ten thousand years ago, when man invented agriculture (availability of grain) and cattle breeding (availability of animal milk).

Methods with the help of which man changed the original food are divided into the following groups according to instinctotherapy:

  • Denaturation by heat : Different kinds of cooking , drying by heat, freezing, deep freezing, irradiation
  • Mechanical denaturation : mixing, seasoning, laying on top of each other, obtaining extracts, grinding, pressing, mixing
  • Use of animal milk and dairy products
  • (Excessive) use of grain (especially wheat ), which before the invention of agriculture was only available in small quantities or was non-existent
  • Application of chemistry : fertilizers, pesticides, artificial additives, synthetic products, medicines, etc.
  • Artificial selection and certain cultivation and rearing techniques

Theory of genetic maladjustment to denatured foods

Burger's theory states that, at 10,000 years , the human organism (especially the enzymes ) did not have enough time to adapt to the molecules produced in the cooking process (cooking, frying, deep-frying, stewing, baking, roasting, etc.). to metabolize them completely .

These molecules , created by the action of heat, are called " New Chemical Species " (NCAs) by raw foodists. Among other things, Maillard molecules and Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGEs) are known to science. One representative is acrylamide .

The theory is contradicted by the fact that, according to recent findings, the body has protective mechanisms, for example against acrylamide in food.

Theory of "detox" or "detoxination"

The theory of maladjustment arose from observations of people switching from traditional cooked foods to instinctive raw foods. Particularly in the first few weeks with unheated food, the excretions initially smelled stronger (sweat, urine, faeces, pimples, ulcerations), but after a few weeks it was noticeably less than with cooked food. Burger believes these smells come from excreted Maillard molecules .

The "detoxification" or "detoxination" according to Burger largely corresponds to the term " purification of the body" in alternative medicine .

Food and psyche

Burger separately examined the effects of the elimination of non-original foods on the nervous system and the associated psychological processes. So far, only one book has been published in this area, in which the aggressive behavior of young criminals is discussed: "Les enfants du crime" - The children of crime. Published by Orkos Editions.


Scientific Article

  • The theory of variable sensory perception or alliesthesia has been described in over 40 publications since 1968 by the French physiologist Michel Cabanac .
  • FM Pottenger Jr. published observations in 1939 on two groups of domestic cats ( Pottenger's Cats ) that were fed raw and cooked meat for several generations. The latter group developed more skeletal deformations from generation to generation, while the former did not.
  • Combe N. et al. found in 1939 in rats fed heated oil that a high percentage of these macromolecules were found in the lymph (and thus in the organism).
  • The scientific representatives of the Stone Age diet ( eng . Paleolithic diet or Paleo diet) - Loren Cordain , S. Boyd Eaton , Staffan Lindeberg et al . - concluded in their 2005 article that the human genome did not have enough time to adapt to the changes in diet since the Neolithic Revolution , which - measured by the duration of evolution - occurred too quickly. Further, this was maladaptation with the occurrence of lifestyle diseases associated.
  • Curt P. Richter pursued the concept of instinct in psychobiology for decades. He coined the term specific hunger / appetite ( eng . Specific hungers / appetites) and explored the regulation of the internal environment. All of these are part of the food instinct theory.
  • In 1928 and 1939, Clara M. Davis published the results of her long-term records of the nutritional behavior of young children in the conversion from milk to solid food (studies " Self-selection of diet by young children "). The toddlers, who were not yet familiar with fixed meals, were able to choose from a selection of mostly unprocessed foods (including even raw beef) that would give them optimal growth , health and vitality.
  • Stephen A. Goff and Harry J. Klee published their work on volatile plant metabolites in 2006, some of which can be perceived by humans and animals. Many of them are (essential) nutrients such as amino acids , fatty acids or carotenes . The researchers concluded that these volatile odorous substances emanating from fruits and other foods can provide the brain with information about the substances contained in food. The food instinct would therefore be nothing more than a simple comparison between the nutritional status of the organism (function of the hypothalamus ) with the ingredients of the scent of the food.

literature

  • Live and enjoy naturally. Departure into a new millennium . Bernd Bieder. Pegasus & Partner, 2000, ISBN 3-929371-03-0
  • The raw food therapy. Nature, pleasure, health. The Secrets of Instinct Therapy . Guy-Claude Burger. Wilhelm-Heyne-Verlag: Munich, 1997, ISBN 3-453-12255-0
  • Healthy without a saucepan - but how? - Tips and tricks for raw foodists and those who want to become one . Reidar Tavarez. 2nd edition, Betzel-Verlag, ISBN 3-932069-81-1
  • Absorption intestinal des espèces chimiques nouvelles (ECN) formées lors du chauffage des huiles. Combe N, Constantin MJ, Entressangles B. Rev. Franç. Corps Gras 1978; 1: 27-28.
  • Heat labile factors necessary for the proper growth and development of cats. Pottenger FM Jr, Simonson DG. in: The journal of laboratory and clinical medicine. Elsevier, Orlando 25, 1939, pp. 238-240.
  • Curt Richter: Psychobiology and the concept of instinct . Schulkin J. History of Psychology. Vol 10 (4), Nov 2007, 325-343.
  • Self selection of diet by newly weaned infants: an experimental study. Davis CM. Am J Dis Child 1928; 36 (4): 651-79 [reprinted as a Nutrition Classics article in Nutr Rev 1986; 44: 114-6].
  • Plant Volatile Compounds: Sensory Cues for Health and Nutritional Value? Goff SA, Klee HJ. Science 2006, Vol. 311, no. 5762, pp. 815 - 819, doi : 10.1126 / science.1112614

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