Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet to Suit You => Carnivorous / Zero Carb Approach => Topic started by: panacea on April 28, 2016, 03:13:05 am
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I've done some reading and I'm intrigued by the nutritional ketogenic diet, raw meat (zero carb) diet, and raw animal food diet principles, and want to combine them into an easy modern "very low carb animal food diet."
My plan is to get the benefits of being in nutritional ketosis, the benefits on digestion of eating less food mass because animal protein/fat is of higher quality and contains less fiber than plant foods, and the benefits of course of eating raw high quality bacteria-rich foods.
For this I am thinking of eating only high-quality organic/free range raw egg yolks (just the yolk, not the sac or the white), about 24 a day. Then I would eat about 13 oz of raw grass-fed grass-finished beef which is a 80/20 lean/fat grind, and every other day eat 1 raw wild caught atlantic salmon fillet and back off on the yolks some (the fattiest brand I can find which fits the wild caught parameter). On top of this I would also drink spring water as desired along with real sea salt (from ancient oceans which contains small amounts of calcium and potassium naturally) especially if I exercise, to act as a kind of electrolyte replenishing drink. All of the animal food would be divided into about 5 meals a day at first, working up gradually into 2-3 meals a day as my body learns to handle it.
The only major sources of carbs on such a diet would be the egg yolks, which contain 0.6 g of carbs per yolk, eating 24 yolks a day as my upper limit would put me at around 14.4 g of carbs per day, and whatever minute quantities I absorb from the raw beef and salmon. Still, that should keep me below 30 g of net carbs a day to remain in ketosis.
I'm waiting on a shipment of the beef to get here before I start, does anyone see anything wrong with my plan or something I'm missing?
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Is your carb goal of "below 30g per day" based on your past ketogenic observations, or someone else's recommendation? If this is based on something you read, then I suggest finding your own level. For some, 30g may be too low; for others, 30g would be too high. Also, timing of carb intake (spread out, not all at once) might be considered, based on your experience.
Also, how do you do with such a narrow choice of food? Some people are fine with it, but if you find yourself fighting the restrictions, be more flexible. I'd go crazy with just three foods, but then again, I don't eat a ton of variety, either. I like to adjust variety by season, sort of.
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@eveheart
I'm going by multiple sources I read for the 30g/day limit, although (see meal plan below) I will basically be below 20g/day. I'm not diabetic or anything, so hopefully my tolerance is at least 20g/day.
I've been a slave to carbs my whole life. I tried cooked keto (mostly bacon and cheese) for a month and my carb cravings went wayy down and I can finally control my diet, something I've never been able to do before, I miss carb foods but I never want to go back to being a slave. I found that even just tasting a food rich in sugar, even if it's relatively low in carbs (such as low carb milk by fairlife), my carb cravings would come back. However, not as strong as they were before, so I'm able to beat them now, but I don't like having to fight them in the first place, hence why I decide to stay away except for the yolks (which don't seem to affect me that way).
A meal plan would look like this:
Day Type 1:
24 raw egg yolks (108g fat, 14.4g carb, 64.8g protein)
13 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (72.8g fat, ~0g carb, 62.4g protein)
Total: 180.8g fat, 14.4g carb, 127.2g protein
Day Type 2:
33 raw egg yolks (148.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 89.1g protein)
3 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (16g fat, ~0g carb, 14.4g protein)
1 fillet of raw wild caught sockeye salmon (12g fat, ~0g carb, 36g protein)
Total: 176.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 139.5g protein
And I would just alternate day type 1 and 2. Conveniently, after two days, I would know I need to buy/have 4.75 dozen eggs, 1 lb of beef, and 1 fillet of salmon for the next 2 days. Since it's raw and mostly egg yolks, it's a very liquid and extremely dense nutrient diet.
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One thing I'm concerned about is the level of selenium from so many egg yolks every day. The "upper intake levels" for selenium in adults is 400 mcg, with my diet I would be getting about 283 mcg on day type 1, and 377 mcg on day type 2. These levels are below the FDA's upper limit, but far above the 55 mcg RDA... I don't know if that means it would cause problems.
To put this into perspective however, approx. 6 brazil nuts can contain 544 mcg of selenium, but I doubt people are eating that much every day like I would be eating yolks every day, and it's a known fact that a lot of people get sick from brazil nuts (probably because of the selenium).
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A meal plan would look like this:
Day Type 1:
24 raw egg yolks (108g fat, 14.4g carb, 64.8g protein)
13 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (72.8g fat, ~0g carb, 62.4g protein)
Total: 180.8g fat, 14.4g carb, 127.2g protein
Day Type 2:
33 raw egg yolks (148.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 89.1g protein)
3 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (16g fat, ~0g carb, 14.4g protein)
1 fillet of raw wild caught sockeye salmon (12g fat, ~0g carb, 36g protein)
Total: 176.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 139.5g protein
And I would just alternate day type 1 and 2. Conveniently, after two days, I would know I need to buy/have 4.75 dozen eggs, 1 lb of beef, and 1 fillet of salmon for the next 2 days. Since it's raw and mostly egg yolks, it's a very liquid and extremely dense nutrient diet.
Did our pre-fire ancestors engineered such meal plans? ;)
Good luck!
does anyone see anything wrong with my plan or something I'm missing?
Yes and yes, I do! Guess what!
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I don't think paleo people would've been throwing away the white.
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I'm in agreement with Iguana.
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24 raw egg yolks a day?
33 raw egg yolks a day?
Holy crap, sounds like a cancer patient with liver issues.
How about you eat on instinct what you like from your current foods ( and doing your less carbs )... and then you chart your days.
I do not know what kind of activity you do... maybe you are just super active to consume that much eggs.
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We had a phase where almost everybody was a raw zero-carber and then suddenly almost no one was anymore. I have a suspicion that going raw, zero-carb requires extra abilities. For example, the Inuit, who were zero-carb(partially raw) have extra-large livers and larger volumes of urine which are apparently needed in order to properly digest the excess protein in their ancestral diet.
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Didn't inuits have a high fat rather than high protein diet? From all the seals and walrus they would hunt. I have no idea, just guessing.
Also, I've heard that prior to contact with the more civilized europeans, the inuits were having all of their meats raw. Is this true?
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No, the Inuits always cooked some of their food, even prior to meeting Caucasians.
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I've been a slave to carbs my whole life....
That describes me, too. Now, I don't shun carbs in the form of non-starchy vegetables, but my daily carb intake is about 25g. This has been a great way to keep my binge-eating urges away completely. I've gone through a few variations and permutations in my variety and carb levels over the years, but the one constant has been keeping low-carb for ketosis.
As far as the lack of variety and general weirdness of eating those many egg yolks, I remember I over-quantified a lot at first until I got the hang of what I was doing. It's not bad to start with your calculations the way you have them set up now and branch out with small changes along the way when you feel like it.
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One thing I'm concerned about is the level of selenium
Selenium supplements typically have 200mcg per capsule, so your calculated levels aren't way high. Also, it might be that a "safe level" is different in real food vs supplements.
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@people concerned with eating only the yolk
The practice of discarding some part of a food the way nature packages it is done for almost all raw foods nowadays even by instinctos or whatever - you discard the shell of the egg, you discard the shells of many nuts, many often discard the skin of fish (for parasites), as well as eyes/organs, people don't eat the hide of cattle (in regards to beef), etc, even though all of these are technically things a carnivore might eat whole in "nature." I'm discarding the white because too much of it may cause a biotin deficiency, and it doesn't contain the balanced level of nutrients I desire like the yolk does.
@zero-carb being high protein
my meal plan accounts for roughly 132g of protein per day, being a 6'8" tall young adult male with about 20% body fat, that is only slightly over what I need not to lose muscle mass, I wouldn't consider this "extra protein" that needs any special abilities to handle.
@eveheart's selenium response
Thanks, that makes me feel a little better, I'm going to see if I can't dial back the 33 yolk days to 24 and increase beef with added suet/fat intake to try and keep selenium down, although you make a good point about real food, there may be more than we know going on.
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We discard the shells of eggs and nuts and the scales of fish and the hides of cattle because they contain no significant nutrients and are incredibly hard to break down by our digestive system. But the egg white contains valuable protein and other nutrients and is in liquid form, so it's easier to break down than any other food. Similarly, the eyes of animals are a tasty treat, and if the animal is healthy and raised properly, you shouldn't throw them away. Wild ocean fish and squid/octopus eyes are all I've tried so far, and I haven't been disappointed in the least. Much the opposite in fact, I now regard them as the most tasty and valuable part of the animal. Plenty of people eat the eyes of other animals. I know of someone who eats rabbit eyes, I haven't had the opportunity to. And of course sabertooth here eats pretty much the entirety of the animals he butchers.
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People thought eating only the yolks was "weird", I was reminding them that sort of thing happens all the time.
People waste nutrients by cooking food that is edible raw, that destroys some amount of nutrients, which go to waste in the air.
People also "waste" nutrients by throwing some part of food away, although it could be argued that this "waste" eventually is fed upon by critters anyway, and is actually less "wasteful" than cooking.
You can also "waste" food simply by eating too much, and making your body use that fuel more inefficiently.
To me the idea of "wasting" food and having to eat the whole animal is an antiquated idea from times of scarce food resources. We have plenty of resources to eat now, but not enough resources to transport the food to all places. I am choosing to select only the best food sources I can get my hands on and afford, which means discarding the whites.
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I eat the white part of the egg. Sometimes.
Why? Because I don't feel like eating the whites all the time.
Instincts? Taste? Maybe.
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Many, perhaps most of us, don't like the eggs' white — but I do like it. Very seldom, when I had eaten a lot of whites and yolks (always separately, one after the other to make sure that I eat only what I need, in the proper amount) I discarded a few whites.
What is totally weird is deciding to eat 24 or 33 eggs everyday! Don't be surprised if you become yourself a giant egg after a few days! :D
PS: The quality of the eggs is another problem. How and where on Earth will you be able to find suitable eggs in such huge amounts?
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Walmart is where I get them, I've never bought the white standard eggs in my life, but the brown free range ones from some brands seem perfectly fine, the yolks are vibrant in color and the sacs containing the yolk are strong (dont break by being handled), which is what I go by since I refrigerate mine.
Why does eating 24 or 33 yolks a day seem so crazy? People eat only ground beef for much of their calories and that seems along the same lines. Yolks are small in volume compared to the entire egg, it would take about 25 egg yolks to fill a 16 oz container. Considering that a gallon is 128 oz, a gallon of milk is over 5 times the volume of 25 egg yolks, would you think someone is insane for drinking 1/5 gallon of milk every day, since milk is even more lopsided nutritionally than egg yolks?
The reason I chose egg yolks as my staple and not beef - I can't find grass fed grass finished 70/30 grinds of raw ground beef conveniently where I live. Egg yolks contain more fat and less protein per gram than beef, so I can better reach my goals of not overconsuming protein each day by eating more of the yolks. Fish (salmon) are even more protein rich and fat lacking, so I have to increase fat somehow on days I eat the salmon. I want the salmon for the omega fats, and the diversity. I want the beef because it's nutritionally a perfect food (but too much protein as a 80/20 grind which is all I got), and the yolks are the best replacement I can find for "fatty high quality animal foods".
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Why does eating 24 or 33 yolks a day seem so crazy?
I wouldn't call it "so crazy." It's a little bit quirky from the "usual" style of egg eating offered in restaurants and cookbooks, but it's not like you are taking vows to eat two dozen egg yolks per day until you die. I would consider your two-day cycle to be a fact-finding mission. I've had some periods like that myself, most recently when I was troubleshooting a symptom that was bothering me.
Variety seems to be a matter of personal preference and availability. I would never consider procuring foods from afar (such as tubers from Africa or nuts from Asia), yet there is nothing really wrong with eating foods from other regions.
I don't know what your "before" carb level looks like, but many people like to dive into ketosis with a week or two (or six) of eating the way you have planned. When you actually start consuming what you planned to eat, you might get sick of it, you might not. I don't eat eggs so much and I can't get beef that I like, so I am living on lamb and fish and enjoying it to the fullest. Nowadays, I get lamb heart, liver, kidneys, and other parts from a halal market in my area. I asked about the ranch and checked it out, so it is grassfed and not supplemented with lamb chow. A quick check of the ranch is reassuring for me.
I make a distinction between authentic and therapeutic paleo. If I were a real cavewoman, I would probably never have gotten sick in the first place -or- I would already be dead. As sick as I was, I've done a great job with part-paleo eating and part engineered eating. I think you are on the right track and your direction sounds reasonable from the symptom you described.
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FWIW, AV recommended as many as 60 eggs/day for boxers. Whole eggs though.
I myself average about 60/week, sometimes going up to 90/week. I only enjoy them as dessert when blended with dairy, fruits and honey, or as savory when stirred or otherwise mixed with ground beef and a few pungent veggies like onion, garlic, hot peppers, ginger, horseradish, etc. I really dislike the texture of the white, so I only have them blended or stirred in a way that the texture changes into something I like.
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FWIW, AV recommended as many as 60 eggs/day for boxers. Whole eggs though.
That was a lady who was on her death bed who was told to eat as much as she liked. She probably had some sort of liver congestion. I've seen that myself in a patient who had liver congestion. It is some sort of instinct to decongest the liver. Maybe Panacea has some sort of liver thing going on that needs to be addressed, why he is so attracted to eggs at this point in time.
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No, besides that lady, I've heard AV also said that about boxers. In the case of that lady, AV recommended eggs because she wasn't able to digest any solid foods, I think.
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There's nothing going on with me, liver included, I'm a young person in a normal health state with no direct ailments other than feeling a little off while being on a high carb diet and especially junk food diets.
I'm not even attracted to eggs, the cooked ones (scrambled) taste delicious but the raw yolks, while more bearable than many other raw foods, don't attract me at all. They simply have the correct macro nutrients I need (fat to protein ratio) and are packed full of vitamins, omega oils, etc without any anti-nutrients or fiber to get in my way to speak of.
Not a single raw food attracts me currently except perfect fruit juices from fresh ripe fruit - which I don't consume because they bring out carb-cravings and lead to junk food consumption.
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There's nothing going on with me, liver included, I'm a young person in a normal health state with no direct ailments other than feeling a little off while being on a high carb diet and especially junk food diets.
I'm not even attracted to eggs, the cooked ones (scrambled) taste delicious but the raw yolks, while more bearable than many other raw foods, don't attract me at all. They simply have the correct macro nutrients I need (fat to protein ratio) and are packed full of vitamins, omega oils, etc without any anti-nutrients or fiber to get in my way to speak of.
Not a single raw food attracts me currently except perfect fruit juices from fresh ripe fruit - which I don't consume because they bring out carb-cravings and lead to junk food consumption.
Oh I see, the logical ratios type.
My 2 cents in eating raw paleo is eating what you actually LIKE... and TASTES GOOD... seriously bro, go and search for foods that you will ENJOY. Taste various foods, varieties, sources, brands... etc.
Listen to some instincto and eat stuff you enjoy.
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Listen to some instincto and eat stuff you enjoy.
Why would panacea ignore his carb-craving symptom, which is the early-warning sign of inflammation that leads to adult-onset diabetes? What kind of "enjoyment" do you imagine one gets from intense carb-cravings, where you know that you just ate so that your stomach is full, but you are still ravenously hungry?
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Why would panacea ignore his carb-craving symptom, which is the early-warning sign of inflammation that leads to adult-onset diabetes? What kind of "enjoyment" do you imagine one gets from intense carb-cravings, where you know that you just ate so that your stomach is full, but you are still ravenously hungry?
Note I said listen to "some" ... instincts... like taste.
Sure there is that logic you mention. I never meant to sway him into eating carbs.
There is a balance somewhere regarding taste.
For example, he has no attraction to eggs, but views eggs as a logical choice... so at least go find eggs that TASTE good.
If he eats beef... go and find beef that TASTES good.
If he eats fish... go and find fish that TASTES good.
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Note I said listen to "some" ... instincts... like taste.
Sure there is that logic you mention.
There is a balance somewhere.
For example, he has no attraction to eggs, but views eggs as a logical choice... so at least go find eggs that TASTE good.
If he eats beef... go and find beef that TASTES good.
If he eats fish... go and find fish that TASTES good.
It's logical to start somewhere and make adjustments later. He is starting from two givens: his macro-nutrient balance plus food availability. His favorite "tastes" will develop later, IF he finds that taste is important. OR, he might think more along the lines of "if I can get through the day without a carb crash, taste doesn't matter at all." I do that often.
You want him to anticipate all future adjustments before he starts; there is NO logic in that. I remember when our local slaughterhouse was closed in a food-quality scandal, and I couldn't find good beef fat. I lived on pasteurized, grass fed butter for a few weeks and ate way too much protein while I scrambled to find other good animal-fat sources.
He is posting in the right topic. Perhaps he is looking for supportive advice within the realm of a low-carb approach. I started out with a generally raw approach, which cut out carbs from grains and legumes and experienced relief from carb cravings. Then, as I broadened my paleo food choices to some of the fruits and nuts mentioned by instincto eaters, I triggered binge-eating all over again. It is possible to eat instincto within low-carb, but you can't just wolf down a banana because of its attractive aroma, because carb-cravings will completely mask signals of satiety. There is no way to tell another person what will work for that person until he tries it. I eat neither eggs nor ground beef, but I can support his efforts intelligently.
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He he, calm down. "Instincto" seems to be a trigger word for you meaning CARBS.
I meant no such thing.
I know those carb crashes myself... sucks... so terrible. I used to get that in the past.
My experience with looking for raw paleo fish, red meat and eggs were just that... some sources tasted terrible, some blah, and some amazing.
So if panacea is just starting out on raw paleo, seems going for ratios is a good start... and then later on go find quality food... usually quality food comes with great taste (not saying carbs). Where I learned the more naturally fed or more wild the animal, it usually tastes better.
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Panacea, if possible, try to find a better source of eggs. Walmart "cage free" "organic" eggs are still really low quality nutrition compared to real farm raised eggs. Those birds have poor nutrition and are given supplemental and sometimes more toxic forms of vitamins, protiens and fats and are also live a sun deficient lifestyle both through environment and diet. They are also often improperly handled. If you are going to eat eggs at quanity and have a limited diet you need to make sure everything is high quality, you may end up eating less and spending less on high quality than you would on poor quality foods. Also I would advice that if you are eatin salmon but whole wild caught salmon and eat the bones and skin in the form of the gelatinous broth you can brew by stewing them at low temps. There is a huge amount if fat just under thr skinthat is always trimmed when you buy fillets. Also add in some seaweed.
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"Instincto" seems to be a trigger word for you meaning CARBS.
I don't know what your comment means.
Instincto refers to instinctotherapie, which means letting the taste and smell of unprocessed foods guide you to the foods that your body needs in the moment. It's a great way to eat. However, inflammation in the body can mimic a normal desire for foods that are inflammatory to an individual. If the inflaming foods are removed, instincto works perfectly.
If a person feels badly after eating a certain food, that food should be avoided, even if taste and smell are appealing. Many people react that way to carbs, and that has nothing to do with trigger words, whatever those are.
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I agree with Jessica, find a better source.
Walmart, organic or not, should be avoided. Put forth some effort to locate local truly free range sources.
Though I will confess that a few years back when I would run out of fat I have on a few occasions bought a pack of beef ribs from Walmart and the taste wasn't that bad...its a crap shoot as far as knowing where it comes from and what exactly is in it...Ive heard much of Walmart beef comes from south america....some of it may come from newly cleared rain forest pastures and be perfectly fine, but its unknown how much of it comes from ecologically sound ranching practices.
If you want to eat more fatty beef you may want to try out some ribs, they are usually cheap and contain a high portion of fat. You could also call around local butcher shops and ask about fat trimmings.
Also try to go in for a variety of wild sea foods so you can develop a taste for what your body needs. Mackerel is an inexpensive and tasty alternative for example.
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I agree with Jessica, find a better source.
Me too. It's almost impossible to find eggs properly fulfilling our requirements. They always give some sort of heated food or other industrials supplements to the fowls. That's why I had to set my own poultry and why my raw paleo friends are doing the same. A lot of work and expenses for a few eggs. Eggs from wild birds could be alright if the birds live in a not too polluted environment... hard to find though!
I have on a few occasions bought a pack of beef ribs from Walmart and the taste wasn't that bad...i
Can't tell by the taste. Heated grain and junk fed beef may very well taste great.
BTW, "instincto" is not about cravings. We don't rely on cravings, but on smell and taste of foods which we try to make sure beforehand that they are alright.
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BTW, "instincto" is not about cravings. We don't rely on cravings, but on smell and taste of foods which we try to make sure beforehand that they are alright.
You are right, instincto is not "about" cravings at all. However, the inflammatory reaction to eating carbs, which is often referred to as carb-cravings, cannot be detected by agreeable taste or smell. I think that carb-cravings are a sign of illness that may later manifest as a named disease. Once that response is identified, I think it is wise to engineer meals to prevent it. Engineered meals sometimes look like what panacea proposes.
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Aren't cravings induced by memories of previous pleasures? Somehow like an alcoholic or a drug addict is craving to drink alcoholic beverages or taking the drug again after weaning. We know that processed and neolithic foods are addictive, so it must be analogous.
Engineering meals supposes that we know it all and that we can master mother nature! That way of thinking has led humanity on the brink of disaster.
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Aren't cravings induced by memories of previous pleasures? Somehow like an alcoholic or a drug addict is craving to drink alcoholic beverages or taking the drug again after weaning. We know that processed and neolithic foods are addictive, so it must be analogous.
No! I'm sure that desire for pleasure could be the cause for some carb cravings, but I'd only investigate that cause after I had ruled out problems with carb metabolism.
In my case, I was producing plenty of insulin, however metabolic problems prevented me from utilizing blood sugar for energy at the cellular level via cellular respiration. Therefore, despite having eating sufficient food from a caloric standpoint, I was ravenously hungry as if I had not eaten at all. The cycle often leads to obesity, because the excess insulin allows the body to store the excess blood sugar as body fat. Clinical symptoms didn't start for me until I was in my mid-forties, but the cravings were there all along and got worse as time passed.
There were no memories of previous pleasures, unless you call symptoms like unrelenting hunger, drowsiness, and malaise pleasurable. Imagine yourself counseling a person with ravenous cravings due to metabolic problems, and you discount the plausible reasons for their symptoms and liken them to an addict! You would be doing nothing to help their health, and you would be adding shame to their perplexity.
If cellular respiration is faulty (called insulin resistance), low-carb eating allows the cellular energy short-circuit to be alleviated because, in the absence of abundant blood sugar, cellular fermentation occurs, allowing the cells to use fats for energy instead of sugars. The switch from cellular respiration (glucose as energy) and cellular fermentation (lipids as energy) happens naturally. The by-product of cellular fermentation is ketones, so this style of eating is often referred to as a ketogenic diet.
Since fat-burning is one of the body's normal energy alternatives, ketogenic eating does not go against Mother Nature. Counting protein, fat, and carb intakes is only needed until one gets used to fixing up low-carb meals. We are engineering the meal, not the food. For example, blood tests have shown me that I can eat up to 10g of carbs at one meal without getting lingering blood sugar spikes, so I eat up to that limit or less per meal. Current blood tests show that I have normal A1C and blood glucose levels, so I can say I reversed diabetes by eating this way. The original poster, panacea, reported no diabetes or obesity, but I applaud him for responding to the first symptom (carb craving) rather than wait until he is older and has many symptoms.
I can't address the causes of addiction to substances like alcohol and drugs, but I'm sure the addiction to each has a biochemical component; if it were possible to instantly shut off the faulty biochemistry, the addiction would disappear in that instant. With dietary carb-cravings, low-carb eating instantly fixes the biochemical component using a normal metabolic pathway. Whatever the downside of staying in ketosis, the upside wins.
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I don't trust what tastes "good" because junk foods like fried fries tasted great, so do healthier foods like scrambled eggs, yet raw egg yolks don't taste good and are basically the same food as scrambled eggs, therefore my "tastes good" can't be trusted, at least not yet. I do however trust my taste/smell if something tastes or smells "off" such as being rancid, bitter when it shouldn't be, and stuff like that.
I know I feel good eating yolks, beef, and salmon from brief experiments, maybe it's not as good as it can get, but it's in the right direction it seems. There is a second part to cravings besides just carbs. Even on a ketogenic diet (less than 30 carbs a day) I crave cooked food, preferably hot, and most importantly familiar food (raw beef/yolks/salmon is not familiar for me yet). I'm confident that if I can keep with the diet I planned in this thread for as little as a month I'd be "over the hill" on that craving-battle, either by becoming accustomed to the foods via habit or my body gets used to it chemically.
I've decided that if the quantity of yolks bothers me at all down the experimental road, the next thing to try is increase the quantity of raw beef and mix it with raw beef fat to get the grind closer to 70/30 manually (suet or regular beef fat), and decrease the yolks to about 12 a day. Does anyone know where the fat in 80/20, 90/10, and 70/30 grinds of ground beef comes from? Is it from fat on other parts of the animal mixed into the lean meat, or is the fat usually just nearby? I'm concerned that not all fat on the animal is equal (because I've read animals store a lot of accumulated fat-soluble toxins depending on the location of the fat).
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Does anyone know where the fat in 80/20, 90/10, and 70/30 grinds of ground beef comes from? Is it from fat on other parts of the animal mixed into the lean meat, or is the fat usually just nearby? I'm concerned that not all fat on the animal is equal (because I've read animals store a lot of accumulated fat-soluble toxins depending on the location of the fat).
Here in California, most beef is "sent out" to be slaughtered and butchered in FDA facilities, and this includes the major grassfed beef ranches as well as those raising bison. That means that the facility prepares the wholesale cuts and often the individual steaks and roasts and the mix for the various grinds. The fat source is from the trimmings at that processing plant.
If you buy your grind from a in-house butcher, you can ask what they put in the grinder.
Ask around in your area and you'll find out where the beef is coming from. You can find ranches at eatwild.com and ask them about things like that. I wouldn't be too fussy as long as the beef is 100% grassfed. I don't even worry about an organic certification, since natural pasture doesn't typically need to be sprayed with chemicals, and routine antibiotics are not needed when ruminants eat pasture.
BTW, I eat mostly lamb and goat - I can get meat from the actual ranch where it is raised and slaughtered - I can follow "my" animal from the hoof to the hook, and the whole animal fits in the trunk of my car!
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I don't trust what tastes "good" because junk foods like fried fries tasted great, so do healthier foods like scrambled eggs, yet raw egg yolks don't taste good and are basically the same food as scrambled eggs,
Of course! This is the very basic and essential fact that our instinct (as the one of every animal) is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff — anything new* that hasn't been available in nature during the millions years of our lineage's evolution!
*10 000 years is a very short time compared to several millions years of evolution.
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Grains, dairy and cooked foods contain opioids which affect the brain and cause addiction. In actual fact, genuine taste is absent in cooked foods, which is why people need to smother their cooked foods with sauces in order to give them some taste. There is a huge difference in taste between raw meat from intensively-farmed animals and raw, grassfed meats, and raw wild game, the latter being the best in taste.
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True enough!
http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm (http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm)
http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html (http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html)
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Sorry I don't buy it, if our instinct is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff, then why does my taste tell me when I eat raw grassfed beef, egg yolks, or salmon, that it isn't delicious? That isn't processed, mixed, or heated stuff. Basically, eating what I evolved to eat doesn't give me any good signals yet, and there are no direct "processed, mixed, heated stuff" interfering with my taste buds at that time.
The truth must be that it's the brain, familiarity most of all of taste, texture, temperature of food, consistency, flavor, etc that tells us what is good or not at that moment. Kids in other countries treat raw live caught tarantulas as a delicacy, and when given the option would prefer that type of food over McDonalds (they did a test of this in their school) that is a behavioral/cultural adaptation, not an evolutionary one. In the US kids would prefer McDonalds over tarantulas, etc. Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.
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Sorry I don't buy it, if our instinct is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff, then why does my taste tell me when I eat raw grassfed beef, egg yolks, or salmon, that it isn't delicious? That isn't processed, mixed, or heated stuff. Basically, eating what I evolved to eat doesn't give me any good signals yet, and there are no direct "processed, mixed, heated stuff" interfering with my taste buds at that time.
Because you're in a state of overload in some nutrients contained in these raw foods! Thus, you abut directly on the instinctive stop signals. Cease completely to eat cooked, processed, mixed foods and in a few days most raw foods will become attractive and delicious to you, according to your current needs. It may not be immediately meat, eggs or salmon but something else.
The truth must be that it's the brain, familiarity most of all of taste, texture, temperature of food, consistency, flavor, etc that tells us what is good or not at that moment. Kids in other countries treat raw live caught tarantulas as a delicacy, and when given the option would prefer that type of food over McDonalds (they did a test of this in their school) that is a behavioral/cultural adaptation, not an evolutionary one. In the US kids would prefer McDonalds over tarantulas, etc. Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.
There's some truth in what you wrote, but the examples you give are rather exceptions than generalities. In general, animals and humans fall into the cooked food, get in overload and are no longer able to eat most foods raw. That's certainly why cooking habits became generalized and aren't reversible — unless we understand this phenomenon. ;)
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Grains, dairy and cooked foods contain opioids which affect the brain and cause addiction.
TD, I do not intend to debunk your opioid warnings, but were talking about another specific factor here: glucose utilization at the cellular level. I don't see the point in lumping all cravings-triggers into one "eat raw!" solution. Avoiding foods that produce an opioid effect is another issue entirely.
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It took me c. 3 weeks before I liked the taste of raw grassfed meats. I found the taste of raw grassfed organ-meats and raw wild game too rich at first but soon started to prefer their taste after some months of going RVAF. In my 20s, before I went raw vegan, fruitarian and then rawpalaeo, I found I no longer liked the taste of cooked foods but had to eat them anyway for sustenance.
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True enough!
http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm (http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm)
http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html (http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html)
Iguana, that "trigger-food avoidance" approach to eating disorder treatment has less than a 2% success rate when used alone, although it is utilized well in treating other health issues.
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@Iguana
Again I don't agree with you, more foods will become attractive the longer you abstain from food no matter what the foods are. If you go starving for long enough, your own body parts or the human bodies of others start to look tasty. That is definitely based on instinct (to survive) but it doesn't really tell you what are the optimum foods. Simply making yourself more hungry so you can stomach new foods (healthier ones) is a sound strategy, but you have to intellectually know which foods are healthier using your brain, not sense of taste/smell, until your body is familiar with it and associates certain tastes/smells with not being a danger, and making you feel energetic. That is very hard to do to isolate what foods are good unless you only eat one thing at a time, or know before hand which foods are best using your intellect. Also, eating one food at a time will most likely cause nutritional deficiencies which increase hunger, and even increase hunger for subpar foods to try and compensate. In short, I don't put much stock in "instinct" because the environment around us is completely full of non-evolutionary stimuli. We are in a new "jungle" of food with an outdated taste navigation system that can never catch up without intellect filling the gaps.
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Panacea, iguana is explaining a narrower use of the word "instinct" as it is used in instinctotherapie, which teaches a mindful application of taste and smell used to guide a person to select foods to eat at any given time by the taste and smell signals, much in the same way as a pastured cow selects each legume or grass plant that it eats from among the variety of plants in the pasture. If this method is used to guide food intake, the food must be unprocessed, unseasoned, etc., so that the signals of flavor and odor are not altered. There is other information about this approach elsewhere in this forum, but it has no direct application to designing a low-carb diet.
If you do decide to learn instinctotherapie, you can use it with a low-carb diet. For example, since I eliminated the whole range of sweet-tasting foods, I have used instinctotherapie to learn to identify a signal that tells me to stop eating a sugar-y food - it's an immediate signal that feels like I just ate a big bite of fiberglass insulation and there's a tightness at the base of my tongue that prevents me from swallowing.
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Oh, in that case, humans do the same thing with fruits and other plant foods that can be unripe, ripe, or rotten.
But with animal foods they are basically always clearly "ready to eat" in the wild unless there is obvious evidence, such as flies and insects devouring the rotting flesh (plus the smell is unmistakable and you don't have to get close to tell), so while I can see the merit of taste/smell in distinguishing if something is ripe/unripe/rotten/ready to eat, how in the world is it supposed to tell you what you are supposed to eat much less what is optimum to eat at any given time?
Cease completely to eat cooked, processed, mixed foods and in a few days most raw foods will become attractive and delicious to you, according to your current needs. It may not be immediately meat, eggs or salmon but something else.
Seems like he was saying "instincto" tells you what nutrients you need based on what taste/smells good. In my experience I can tell if I need a protein-rich meal or a fat-rich meal or both simply by what I crave, when all food is locked in a fridge or freezer and I can't taste or smell it.
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Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.
Yes, in a large part and that's why we need some training (preferably with others, experienced ones) to get rid of our preconceived ideas and habits and discover new foods that others are appreciating but which we would never had thought could be attractive and tasty.
Seems like he was saying "instincto" tells you what nutrients you need based on what taste/smells good. In my experience I can tell if I need a protein-rich meal or a fat-rich meal or both simply by what I crave, when all food is locked in a fridge or freezer and I can't taste or smell it.
You can tell, but you can be wrong since cravings are based on memory and your current needs may differ of those of yesterday. What was tasty yesterday (or more likely a month or a year ago) may not be tasty for you now. We are not in a steady state, everything changes.
… so while I can see the merit of taste/smell in distinguishing if something is ripe/unripe/rotten/ready to eat, how in the world is it supposed to tell you what you are supposed to eat much less what is optimum to eat at any given time?
How do think wild animals know what they are supposed to eat and in which amount?
... but you have to intellectually know which foods are healthier using your brain, not sense of taste/smell, until your body is familiar with it and associates certain tastes/smells with not being a danger, and making you feel energetic. That is very hard to do to isolate what foods are good unless you only eat one thing at a time, or know before hand which foods are best using your intellect.
Of course, we eat one thing at a time since we don't mix them. But this doesn't prevent us to eat more than on food in a meal, one after the other. Anyway, even if we eat only one stuff at a meal, we wouldn't get nutritional deficiencies in the few hours before the next meal!
Our intellect is totally unable to tell what food are best for someone in a particular state at a given moment. Have you ever seen nutritionists fully agree between them? What is the meaning of “healthy food”? A food may be beneficial to someone in a certain amount but become harmful in a larger amount or to someone else.
Also, eating one food at a time will most likely cause nutritional deficiencies which increase hunger, and even increase hunger for subpar foods to try and compensate. In short, I don't put much stock in "instinct" because the environment around us is completely full of non-evolutionary stimuli. We are in a new "jungle" of food with an outdated taste navigation system that can never catch up without intellect filling the gaps.
Yes, we have to eliminate the “non-evolutionary stimuli” from our nutritional range. It means avoiding all the neolithic and modern foods.
Thanks for the discussion, I enjoy it! :)
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How wild animals know what to eat varies a lot
I'd imagine for carnivores that typically eat fresh-killed animals, they hunt by the smells and sights of the live animals based on pheromones or just general scent, nothing to do with the specific scent of the meat under the hide. Typically they select the weak small ones (child or disabled) in a herd or flock to kill, hardly the most "optimum" but as in all of nature, they are limited by what's available.
If I had a ton of Cheetos (very unhealthy type of potato chip) and nothing else to eat, eventually after enough days even though I think Cheetos are disgusting, I'd eat them to fruitlessly stay from starvation. The same is true for raw meat or any other edible food. The longer I go without what my body wants nutritionally, the more open I am to new foods (good or bad). Using intellect we can try to select which foods are best, but we may be wrong. I don't believe that "bad" foods like cooked/processed fries and milkshakes etc cause my taste and smell to be out of whack, I think they alter what the brain is familiar to eating, and therefore what tastes familiar (safe/good) and what doesn't (weird/bad). If a new food has enough similarity to old food, even if it's a completely new food (for example: trying something which is not a chicken wing but tastes exactly like it with a similar consistency) the brain is more inclined to "like" it right from the start. Behaviorism > Instinct, even dogs that have been raised on non-raw meat pet food, and haven't scavenged and happened to eat wild kills while growing up almost always will not eat raw meat without training (mixing old food in with the new to trick them). All animals are subject to operant conditioning, but highly cultural animals like humans are vastly more impressionable by culture/others behavior and our own behavior feedback loop than any other type of animal. I've seen dogs walk right up to a raw steak and lick it and walk away as if it was worse than pet food, simply because their brain had been conditioned otherwise. Given enough time away from pet food of course they will eat it, 5 years later given enough time away from raw meat they will again eat pet food. In the wild, when you are not given pet or human food, you have starvation or you eat whats available. After you do that for awhile, you become accustomed to what's available in that local area, whether your parent animals fed you it as a baby or not.
The whole "instinctotherapie" thing seems to be a dangerous road where you only eat what "tastes" good at the current moment, when that has nothing to do with what is optimal, as all animals raised in captivity (humans included) are proof of (ignoring their natural food such as raw flesh for home-caged pet-feed dogs). There is transition food by "mixing" which tricks the animals into eating healthier without starving/fasting first, but no magical "intermediary" foods that are healthier but also different than what we're familiar with.
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The whole "instinctotherapie" thing seems to be a dangerous road(...)
Yes, yes, very dangerous! >D
A diet of beef, salmon plus 24 / 33 raw egg yolks per day is so much safer: it has been practiced successfully by hundreds of people during up to 50 years. Moreover, several children have been born and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, so it's very well proven... ;) ;D :P
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I would love for someone to do a study on offspring of people on long-term RVAF diets. I strongly suspect that the rate of birth-defects would be much lower for such people.
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@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...
Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).
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@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...
Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).
If you are already aware of this, I apologize, but the general consensus among RAFers with years of experience is that the Instincto method is a good one, but it does tend to make people eat more sweet foods than they should, unless they are being careful. I eat mono-style, like Instinctos, but I don't go through a complex process of tasting and sniffing. I just sort of pay attention to my intuition.
I can tell when I've had too much fruit, or when I'm a little dehydrated, and I adjust accordingly. I think this is the way most long-time RAFers do it.
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I notice that the original poster asked his question in the Raw Paleo Diet to Suit You section, under Carnivorous/Zero Carb Approach, and his wording clearly stated his intent: "I've done some reading and I'm intrigued by the nutritional ketogenic diet, raw meat (zero carb) diet, and raw animal food diet principles, and want to combine them into an easy modern "'very low carb animal food diet.'"
He is not asking about your suggested alternative to low-carb. He is asking about his plan to get into ketosis, which can take a matter of a few days to a few weeks. There are some good suggestions on this thread, but they are lost in the mire of the anti-low carb comments.
@iguana, this is one of the ways that low-carb looks: engineered. There are more subtle ways of engineering, too. For example, you can buy a whole animal and eat it until it's done, with or without nibbling on random plant foods. Or, you can eat a lot of fish and seafood from a local fishmonger and rotate carbs strictly according to what is local and in season.
@TD, it really doesn't require "extra abilities" to eat low-carb. I run into many low-carb people at work, at the gym, at restaurants. I don't seek out these people. They are everywhere, so once you notice what someone is eating, it's just a matter of a casual "Oh? You too?" and a smile.
@GS, he explained why he was trying ketosis. Why tell him "How about you eat on instinct what you like from your current foods?" He's done some charting and observing, now he's got an idea to try. His macronutrient ratios are perfect for what he's trying to accomplish. It sounds like he's read a lot about ketosis, so he probably knows about preventing type 2 diabetes in the future by responding to the first signs of insulin resistance.
@CK, why should this discussion turn into one about instinctotherapie? If panacea had gone over to the Instincto Forum and posted some random rant, that would be one thing. But this is different.
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I agree with Eveheart.
As much as we've made great inputs and great discussions. A newbie may get lost.
Let's let the OP get on with his current experiment. Maybe in a few months he will see this thread and make better sense of it in the future.
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After 15 years of raw foodism, I don't care what a newbie wants. He will try this, it will fail to whatever degree, and he will learn from that failure or not. But it will fail. Only a few people here really do well on such a low-carb regime long-term, and NOBODY does well on such a limited diet, long-term.
And that, sweet Eve, is that.
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He's hardly a newbie, and he's not saying that this is for the long run. I don't see the point in reading so much into a simple post.
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@cherimoya_kid
What exactly is my proposed diet lacking?
I'm pretty sure it only lacks carbs, which are not necessary to the human body if ample fat and protein are provided (which they are).
Also where are you getting the idea that very low carb long-term has any negative implications, at all?
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@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...
The SAD is a disaster! Most people on a standard diet become sick, obese, have bone malformations, dental caries and could barely survive without medicine!
Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).
On the contrary, it always changes. And as a told you, some training with others, experienced ones is essential.
Anyway, you seem to know better than me what instinctotherapy is, so I'll leave you alone. Good luck with your Wallmart's eggs yolks diet! Please, don't forget to let us know the results after some months or, better, years. ;)
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I have found Instincto to work quite well for me. I have noticed some unusual changes in my body that have occurred after some time on this RPD diet. For example, on the rare occasions when I am forced to eat cooked foods, I generally vomit afterwards if I eat a lot of it, so I usually eat very little. It seems that my body instinctively reacts if I eat more than a small amount of cooked foods at one time.
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After much thought, I've restructured my diet plan to the following (every day the same thing now for simplicity)
Every day:
12 raw egg yolks (646 calories)
12 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (540 calories)
1.6 oz raw beef fat (306 calories)
2.56 oz raw beef suet fat (620 calories)
0.5 raw salmon fillet (130 calories)
The vast majority of energy will come from fat still, but now the emphasis is on beef fat rather than yolk fat. Carbs are also reduced to 8 which only come from the yolks. I was amazed at how different the fat/protein ratio is between "beef fat" and "beef suet fat". Suet contains almost no protein, and beef fat contains quite a bit. I intend to mix both into the 80/20 raw ground beef to try and get it closer to 70/30 beef, or even 60/40.
One thing I'm concerned about is how hard some of the fat is, the grassfed beef fat (not rendered) and especially suet seem like they are too hard for human consumption at first taste, but that could just be the refrigerator (thawed in fridge for 4 days). I'm not too concerned about prolonged fridge storage of fat since it's mostly void of water and in airtight containers.
Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?
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Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?
I bought beef suet (the actual "kidney fat" or "caul fat" from around the kidneys) just once and never again. It was chalky and dense in my mouth. I ended up rendering it and making candles out of it.
My preference is back fat, which I can get from a friendly butcher who trims his roast from the rump end of the grass fed beef and saves me some. It lasts forever stored uncovered on a plate or hook in the fridge. I chew it and swallow the fat that is released and warmed by chewing. When only connective tissue is left, I swallow that, too.
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I have no idea why but whenever I tried eating raw, organic, grassfed beef suet , I would seemingly not properly digest it and get horrid yellow stools soon afterwards, sort of like diarrhea. I have no idea why this is. As regards raw animal fat, I far prefer raw tongue or raw marrow or the white fat on raw leg of lamb etc., they just taste better. Other, luckier RVAF dieters have access to raw fat via raw fish eggs. Raw zero-carbers, though, often just love the taste of raw suet and consider it an essential component of their diet.
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Somebody point me to how this calorie counting works.
I never ever tried counting.
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Somebody point me to how this calorie counting works.
I never ever tried counting.
I'm not sure what "this" calorie counting you are talking about. In general, it is possible to quantify the amount of food a person eats in terms of kcal of energy contained in the food. Each food is usually counted by the kcal of each macronutrient, and the tests are done in a laboratory, not in the human digestive system.
Once the calories are quantified, various dietary approaches are taken with the quantities. For example, I use food values to calculate the carbohydrate load of each meal so I can control how much insulin my body releases in response to carbohydrate intake. In other areas, daily kcal intake is counted to produce a caloric deficit, which is used often in weight loss, but has the side effect of slowing the metabolism and causing long-term weight gain. Body builders and heavy lifters often figure out various macronutrient needs to match their extreme workout schedule, particularly focusing on enough protein to prevent muscle loss.
It is good, when eating a low-carb diet to pay some attention to levels of macronutrients to avoid excesses in carbs and proteins. Many nutrient tables list macros, calories, vitamins, and minerals, but low-carb focuses on grams of macronutrients. As long as a person is eating enough food, calories are not counted for their own sake,
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I have always viewed calorie-counting as extremely dodgy. We are all different, with different metabolic rates due to personal circumstances etc., so that calorie-counting seems awfully orthorexic.
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I'm not calorie counting, the calories listed in my diet plan are for ease of understanding where the energy comes from, since fat contains much more energy per gram than protein/carb. Calorie numbers help bring this to light. All I cared about in formulating the meal plan was grams of fat, protein, and carbs to maintain ketosis, not lose muscle mass (with a safety factor), and meet my energy needs (mostly through dietary fat).
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I've been reading other peoples complaints about eating a lot of "raw meat" and have concluded it must be because they are not eating enough fat. We must remember that lean beef, especially 90/10 lean beef, is extremely devoid of fat you'd find in the natural carcass. I went searching for this information and apparently the ratio of fat to lean beef in an average carcass is 30.5% fat and 69.5% beef, this ratio is in pounds of the animal carcass.
However what is not clear is if this "490 pounds of boneless trimmed beef" is trimmed to be 100% beef and 0% fat, or if it is 90/10, 80/20, 70/30. I'm sure it varies based on the cut of meat, but just about every cut of meat has some fat. Is this fat added to the total pounds of "fat trim", or not? I suspect not. If the latter is the case, then the percentage of fat is even higher than calculated (by about 49 pounds at least). If the latter is correct, then the average cow carcass actually contains more energy from fat than protein. IF that is correct, then it should not be hard to imagine why eating a disproportionate amount of protein from raw meat without the raw cow fat to go along with it causes problems in the long run, especially since high protein diets can kick you in and out of ketosis just like low-carb diets. I don't like low-carb diets, I only like very-low-carb diets, because you aren't rollercoastering in and out of ketosis in those.
So, to summarize: A 1200 steer, ½ inch fat, average muscling, yields a 750 pound carcass. The 750 pound carcass yields approximately:
490 pounds boneless trimmed beef
150 pounds fat trim
110 pounds bone
- See more at: http://igrow.org/livestock/beef/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-from-a-fed-steer/#sthash.IPrVs65Z.dpuf (http://igrow.org/livestock/beef/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-from-a-fed-steer/#sthash.IPrVs65Z.dpuf)
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Yuri had severe problems on low-carb. It can be very taxing on the adrenals, depending on the person.
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After much thought, I've restructured my diet plan to the following (every day the same thing now for simplicity)
Every day:
12 raw egg yolks (646 calories)
12 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (540 calories)
1.6 oz raw beef fat (306 calories)
2.56 oz raw beef suet fat (620 calories)
0.5 raw salmon fillet (130 calories)
The vast majority of energy will come from fat still, but now the emphasis is on beef fat rather than yolk fat. Carbs are also reduced to 8 which only come from the yolks. I was amazed at how different the fat/protein ratio is between "beef fat" and "beef suet fat". Suet contains almost no protein, and beef fat contains quite a bit. I intend to mix both into the 80/20 raw ground beef to try and get it closer to 70/30 beef, or even 60/40.
One thing I'm concerned about is how hard some of the fat is, the grassfed beef fat (not rendered) and especially suet seem like they are too hard for human consumption at first taste, but that could just be the refrigerator (thawed in fridge for 4 days). I'm not too concerned about prolonged fridge storage of fat since it's mostly void of water and in airtight containers.
Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?
Genuine curiosity... how did you come up with the calories you needed to consume?
Can you show the math? Is it your weight and activities you do?
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Yuri had severe problems on low-carb. It can be very taxing on the adrenals, depending on the person.
In large-scale studies, the various hormonal problems with low-carb diets are often linked to low-carb/low-calorie diets. That shows up a lot in the Atkins weight-loss groups, where eager dieters try to race each other by losing a zillion pounds in record time. There are various cycling strategies to avoid hormonal problems from caloric restriction during ketosis, such as Dave Asprey's "refeeding" concept, which is used in his Bulletproof Diet, but that approach is a variation of low-carb, and it doesn't purport to be a ketogenic diet, although some people use it that way.
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In large-scale studies, the various hormonal problems with low-carb diets are often linked to low-carb/low-calorie diets. That shows up a lot in the Atkins weight-loss groups, where eager dieters try to race each other by losing a zillion pounds in record time. There are various cycling strategies to avoid hormonal problems from caloric restriction during ketosis, such as Dave Asprey's "refeeding" concept, which is used in his Bulletproof Diet, but that approach is a variation of low-carb, and it doesn't purport to be a ketogenic diet, although some people use it that way.
Yuri wasn't restricting calories. He was very active, and should probably have been eating more often, but any diet that needs this many caveats already should be approached carefully. Sure, it's been a lifesaver for you, Lex, and Saber, but it was a clusterfuck for Geoff and Yuri.
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Yuri wasn't restricting calories. He was very active, and should probably have been eating more often, but any diet that needs this many caveats already should be approached carefully. Sure, it's been a lifesaver for you, Lex, and Saber, but it was a clusterfuck for Geoff and Yuri.
If low-carb has been a lifesaver for some, why not let this thread focus on how-to rather than better not? Panacea has been posting on this board for years now, so I'm sure he's read the threads discussing low-carb problems by some members. However, since he has said that he's the type who benefits from low-carb, I would rather not see all these tangents to an otherwise on-topic discussion.
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"Yuri had problems on low-carb"
OK, my diet isn't low-carb, it's very-low-carb, to remain in nutritional ketosis 24/7. "Low carb" can mean 60g of carb a day all at once which can easily send someone out of ketosis, make them go back into "keto flu" symptoms and shock the body like a rollercoaster over and over again if repeated. Very-low-carb diets, nutritional ketogenic diets, aka really approaching zero-carb diets let you adapt to a ketogenic metabolism one time and remain adapted. This isn't "complicated", it's simple - don't eat anything high in carbs and don't eat a lot of carbs or protein all at once. Eat moderate protein and enough fat for daily energy needs. Where my engineered diet differs from most is that I chose only high quality animal foods, but more diverse than just beef, rather than any plant foods, spices, etc. at all. Also it is strictly raw, not heated past room temperature in any way, and minimally processed (such as butchering).
Most "keto" dieters I read about on the internet use cooked food like bacon, eat avocados (plant food plus high in carb), etc. As the "bear" said, uprooting your familiar diet is almost impossible for most unless you have a strong motivation to do so. My motivation happens to be how much better I can think and how much longer I can work while on a ketogenic diet (felt horrible on high carb in contrast, always thinking about food or the bathroom or sleep). I need to be able to focus on what I love which is inventing new programming routines, which requires almost constant mental "daydreaming" or imagination. Better health through ketogenic dieting gives me more access to that, I believe that a raw high quality animal food keto diet will give me even more access to those energy levels, and is a strong motivator, but it's still damn hard to change.
Genuine curiosity... how did you come up with the calories you needed to consume?
It was calculated based on my age, height, body weight, and approximate percentage of body fat I have using http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/ (http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/)
I'm sedentary (CAD worker/programmer), 25 yrs old, 6'8" tall, approx. 200 lbs and 18% body fat. I planned for a "maintenance" diet. Calories had 0 to do with it, only grams of fat, protein, and carbs mattered.
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Yuri was actually doing very good on low carb until he tried intermittent fasting. For some reason it sent his body into tailspin.
I think different people react differently to low carb. Some do really well and some not so much.
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It was calculated based on my age, height, body weight, and approximate percentage of body fat I have using http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/ (http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/)
I'm sedentary (CAD worker/programmer), 25 yrs old, 6'8" tall, approx. 200 lbs and 18% body fat. I planned for a "maintenance" diet. Calories had 0 to do with it, only grams of fat, protein, and carbs mattered.
Hey thanks.
Now I'm wondering if those calculations work with raw everything.
I noticed I eat around 50% less meat by visual volume or weight compared to cooked.
Might be interesting to try it out too.
http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/ (http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/)
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I suspect all raw will need less grams of fat and protein total as well, but mainly for fat. Apparently almost no protein is lost due to cooking, while around half the fat in typical cooked beef can be lost (not all methods do this). Since fat is the part you really need to make the diet work, and contains 225% the energy per gram than protein does, that is significant indeed.
Honestly right now it seems like even a fist-size amount of raw food is too much (besides egg yolks which are easy to gulp) because it just doesn't taste good, smell good, or look good at all to me. It does however make me feel good, but that feel-good is more of an energy level, and not so much satiation like cooked beef/fat gives (because its familiar to me, I eat more of it, until satiated). It is one hell of a behavioral challenge to change a diet like this, yet I know it would be so effortless if I had no choice (no option available) for just 3 weeks.
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Now I'm wondering if those calculations work with raw everything.
I use a food-values listing that specifies whether the values are for raw or cooked. It even lists fermented vs not fermented. I think the biggest factor in the difference between raw and cooked is the change in water weight. Also, some meats have their fats cooked out from cooking. However, keep in mind, that calories of each gram of macronutrient doesn't change so much as the included water does.
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How about sharing your food-values listing?
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How about sharing your food-values listing?
The nutrition information of various foods is widely available online. A few databases are mentioned in other threads, such fitday, calorieking, and myfitnesspal. Then there are places to view the US government listings. Wikipedia lists nutrition information on the page of each food.
In general, one would rely on appetite signals to determine how much to eat. If a person is gaining or losing weight without explanation, food values might lead to information that helps diagnose the problem. I would caution against using the food values to crash diet, which is a form of orthorexia that can lead to various eating disorders.
GS, I know you help a lot of people with various health problems, and you seem to be very interested in the topic of calorie counting, which is really not pertinent to this conversation. Why not start a thread with your question, perhaps on the Health forum, so someone can give you specific information about your situation, and maybe our collective experience will help you guide one of your patients.
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All the values I used for protein/fat/carb/calories in my diet plans are from the raw versions, or grass-fed raw versions.
The macronutrients are going to be similar to what those data show, that isn't the issue, the issue is that even raw foods that most people cook after buying in stores have their nutrition labeled as if you consume them raw. The nutrition labels here in the US have to assume you eat it just as you buy it, even though most people don't. Therefore, most people eat more food volume and weight vs their raw dieters. Calculators online are probably designed for those people, not for raw dieters. Either way, either the cooked food dieters are eating too little if they strictly adhere to calculators, or raw food dieters are eating too much. A calculator can't account for both cooked diets and raw diets with no option to specify the percentage of food you eat is raw or cooked. Similarly, there are not two-labels on most foods, one for cooked, and one for raw. It just comes in the form you buy it.
In addition to that, high quality raw animal food contains less waste and higher bioavailibility than its cooked counterparts, nutrition calculators can't account for that either.
Also keto-adapted bodies may be more efficient by evoking autophagy (using energy from recycling cell parts) to a lesser degree than fasting, which otherwise would only become waste (alternative fuel source).