Correct. As Tyler has mentioned, many of the problems that combine to make it impossible for all humanity to eat Paleo-type diets stem from overpopulation.

How are you so sure about this. Have you done the math? It shouldn't really take that much work to find out how much land used for grain we could convert to grass fed animals. There is an excerpt in Vegetarian Myth that covers this and I remember I did some quick math and it seemed like we would have enough land to cover the worlds population with raw paleo. Though she did have at least one numerical mistake and she even said the population could only be 650 million or so. I'll look up that passage where she goes over calories per acre and give you  guys an estimate based on that sometime soon.

  Actually, a number of RPDers, such as myself, get rather nasty reactions fron salt, even in small amounts. Salt is not a palaeo food and was never needed in palaeo times. Salt is primarily a food used in post-cooking eras to help store raw meats for longer periods, otherwise it's useless.

Do you not consider the salt content of blood that was probably eaten with the meat during paleo times? Or is blood sodium different enough from land salt to not be considered paleo?

I think he means the quote which you provided.
_______________________________________________________________________________

obviously, yes. The quote came directly from my email. You seem to misinterpret just about everything I write, even trivial things like this.

Does anyone know why the body doesn't just use excess protein to build more? I can see that if you have more size, you need more food to support it, so you may not do so well when food runs short, but then why isn't it better to have more body to break down? Also, if you're bigger, when food is scarce you should be able to out-compete the others for that food..? Someone mentioned myo-statins in another topic. Do the levels of these ever decrease naturally, simply through continually surpassing the body's dietary needs, if not why not?

The body is very conservative and generally knows what its doing. It has no need for extra muscle mass if it is not being used. It must think extra mass is not as important as simply converting these amino acids to glucose, even when provided with an overabundance. The process of storing excess amino acids as muscle could take longer and be harder than the body than to just excrete them into them urine.

I've read that post from BBQ 3 times now...I'm guessing I need some sleep, 'cause it's still not really registering.  Anyways I went from 30+ 650mg HCL pills with no burn to feeling a burn with 1-2, so I have dropped them for a while now. They definitely seemed to help, though. 

Well, I guess I need to change the password to my email if you've read that three times... With the HCL, I wonder how the actual mechanism in the body works that gets your stomach to produce enough acid again. Perhaps the body stores this HCL slowly somewhere and the pills just top off its supply. I don't see how the HCL would ramp up the body's natural ability to produce it on its own. Maybe it does, who knows. It'll be interesting to see if your need for HCL goes back up since have stopped taking the pills.

Let's go ahead and say it's lack of nutrients from poor digestion that's still causing my issues, then.  Why would I be excreting so much nitrogen in my urine?  Does this mean I'm absorbing absolutely no fat, so my body refuses to produce ketones and instead wastes protein for glucose?  Shouldn't I just use bodily fat stores?  (I am no higher than 7-8% bodyfat, if even, but there's still a bit to be used by my body in an emergency...)  I'll try HCL until burning with my next protein meal later this week and see what happens.

We need to be clear - you don't know how much nitrogen is in your urine and the bubbles are far from a sure sign that this means you are excreting lots of nitrogen.  This is a gigantic assumption from just bubbles. I'm not sure if there is an easily available method for calculating this.

There still is a small possibility that you did over-accumulate protein from your high-protein diet over the past few months that it would take a few days to get completely out of your system. Perhaps your liver is overworked and it can only convert so much protein per day - less than what a normal liver could convert? With your small intake of protein and adequate consumption of tallow (though I don't think this spares much if any protein), you could have lost little lean body-mass after your 'fast', but I still can't make sense of it with all the starvation work I have seen.

What I still think is the interesting part, is whether or not it would be more beneficial to have large protein meals every few days and just munch on low-density vegetation in between or eat smaller amounts of protein everyday.

I really don't think your problem is excess protein, as I said that even if you blood was an entire block of amino acids it could convert all of it to glucose or fat in a couple weeks. Don't you think you would get signals from your body from protein overconsumption much before you reach the point that your blood is entirely composed of amino acids? Or even 10%? Perhaps, though all these amino acids are simply stored in the liver waiting to get converted. Or even better in muscle tissue, though there is no evidence that this would happen in large amounts, though it makes sense that the muscles would be a great temporary deposit for excess amino acids. But, perhaps there is a limit here too, to how much muscle can be built in one day. So, maybe your liver tripled in size?

Why not go to the drugstore and get something to measure urinary ketones? This should give us an answer on ketosis.

I have been corresponding with a forum poster here by the name of Mr. BBQ (check up his posts, they are very informative) who's dealing with many of the same problems as you and I. Here is what he has to say about HCL and its connection to liver function, which I think is probably closer in line with finding the underlying cause of this mess.

On the matter of betaine HCL, it’s a sticking plaster – one questions why the stomach is not producing HCL with multiple possibility. Initially, sufficient chloride is needed, which is nicely bio-available in any traditionally-harvested sun-dried sea salt (with its full complement of ionic minerals and some respective living element).
 
Also, the chyme leaving the stomach and entering the duodenum is a pretty damn acidic cocktail, as you can imagine – this kind of pH ain’t the funk in the small intestine, so what normalises the pH of chyme for that environment(?)...The juices entering the duodenum via the sphincter of oddi – you guessed it, from the liver, gallbladder and pancreas. So, if there’s insufficient alkalising element coming into the duodenum due to occlusions in the biliary tree (sludge, soft stones, hard stones, grit, gravel, allsorts), one may wonder if there’s a corresponding effect to down-regulate HCL production in the stomach. Ultimately, this may impact the effect of the enzymes in the stomach (pepsin etc.), yielding undigested protein.
 
Bile as a fat emulsifier and vehicle for toxins out of the liver, is also a deliverer of bicarbonate for the purpose of alkalising chyme and generally controlling downstream pathogenesis.
 
Can you see a pattern forming here – a really insipid vicious circle, which may be dealt with swiftly to preserve living systems and facilitate proper nourishment?
 
Also, if you’re not emulsifying your fats optimally (bile insufficiency), you’re certainly not uptaking calcium and the fat-soluble vitamins, which are critical to maintaining skeletal metabolism etc.
 
What’s the point in putting excess good food in a body that can’t absorb/uptake or use it?! The people on raw paleo forum contest that good food is all you need, although I can’t imagine that everyday paleo eating could shift some of the very stubborn debris.

I'll try and not duplicate the thread on DC, so if you guys are interested my response to carnivorous is below.

http://forum.dirtycarnivore.com/index.php?topic=684.msg26379#msg26379

MM,

5kg in three months isn't actually a whole lot of protein. Most bodybuilders will supplement with a lot more than that for much longer periods of time. I don't think these amino acids remain in your blood for all that long. There is a physical space limitation for them. I think they simply get turned into glucose or fat rather quickly or else you'd be in danger of an overload of amino acids pretty quick.

I finally have the pleasure of reporting my first significant piece of good news since starting raw paleo 4 months ago. This morning I awoke to the urge to produce stool, which I did - this very long, dark, dense, homogeneous thick mass came straight down from my ass. I probably should of kept it, like restaurants keep their first dollar bills as a token to my first sign of progress. My body felt very light all day, especially my abdomen/gut area. My body felt very at ease the entire day. The pile of sledgehammers dragging behind me were absent today and I felt like I could easily move around with no pain. I had some mild brain fog but this was probably the best my body has felt yet.

If I had to guess, what helped, it would probably be the HCL pills. Although I did eat heaps of carbs last night, I'm not sure they would have gone through my digestive system that fast overnight. Plus, every other time I have carbed up, I have produced terrible soft turds, though no pain. ZC causes me to become constipated with very thin turds.

So, obviously I will be continuing to take the HCL pills but I do want to get to the root of the problems. I actually stayed up late last night past 1:30 and woke up at 7:30 with energy and the ability to move around. Even when I was up at 1:30 I wasn't really pushing myself, it felt somewhat natural - so perhaps my energy had corrected itself somewhat before my magic dump. I had glossed completely over adrenal fatigue this past four months, just assuming that raw zero carb would cure almost everything. But, it seems there are quite a few people that have had adrenal fatigue symptoms with raw zero carb and I found quite a few threads here with little anecdotal evidence that zero carbs can indeed be difficult for those with burnt adrenals. Not to mention Matt Stone and his latest attack of low-carb almost solely because of this glandular malfunction while on it. This connected with me well, since I no doubt have very badly disturbed my adrenals playing poker, yelling, screaming, crying and breaking computers for the last 5 years. Not to mention doing nearly the same thing when I play sports. So, I plan on looking at getting some raw sweetbreads(adrenals, thymus and pancreas), though this seems to be pretty difficult. If I cannot find them, I will just by Dr. Ron's freeze dried glandular supplements.

I'm also not going to restrict carbs for the time being, for the reasons that there is all this chatter about that zc does stress the adrenals. I was so extremely tired on rzc, that I don't think HCL alone will help me out. I've also followed several other zc journals where HCL did not give them the energy they needed. I will even add cooked starch as this seems to be one of the better choices of cooked foods to add to a diet. I do not think this necessarily optimal or even close, its just that it may have some beneficial effects letting my adrenals heal. Meat and fat will be as raw as ever.

I am hopeful for a full recovery but I think I still need to remove my amalgams and then chelate the metals out - which I have not figured out the best method for yet. I'll probably try something natural first - chorella and coriander tincture before trying Cutlers methods but I still have a lot to research here first. I also want to continue liver flushing and so should be eating lots of raw yolks but might try something more potent with a Hulda Clark type liver flush. I also have a bag of french green clay that I will look into using as an even further healing agent.

KD, yes it seems that not that many people at DC add fat. I think a lot of them still eat grain-fed meat which doesn't need much fat. Many people there seem to be very concerned with weight and not as much with other health issues, whearas here at rpf, it seems there is little discussion on weight on more on finding the underlying cause of these issues. Also, 20lbs of suet isnt that much and I would have bought more if I knew I was going to be staying here longer. I never seem to lose the taste for suet though marrow can definitely give me a stop like it did yesterday. Perhaps my body would like to be fueled more with saturated fat than mono.

DJR, I really hope you are right, that my taste buds can tell the whole story with deficiencies, though I'm reluctant to take your statement as strong as you state it. I've only managed to intake maybe 3ml total in the past couple weeks since I got the trace minerals Mg, and thats not even their suggested 1 day intake. My taste buds don't have an off switch for fruit or other carbs so I'm going to be cautious with listening to them, though it'd be really interesting to take that test.

With that said, I tried to eat kidney yesterday and failed massively, so perhaps my kidneys are fine?  I was also pretty hungry when I tried them. I've had them sitting out now for a couple days and will try them again tonight. If they still taste bad I'm either going to cook them or toss them. Also interesting, is that I had a bunch of liver a week ago or and stuffed it down with ease but a month or so before that I couldn't get through 100g of it. Maybe I need to eat liver more frequently?

I'm also going to probably add some kelp for some iodine as this seems to be connected with glandular malfunction.


This is just speculation but, my digestion has been very poor for at least the past 5 years, if not longer and I might not have as many issues with carbs as I once thought. Cooked VLC seemed to save me at first, but it may have had nothing to do with the low carb content. We shall see

Will, yeah its feedlot beef that tastes terrible-which is fed grain. So there is a difference between farm raised grain-fed beef and industrial feed lot beef? It almost tasted toxic to me, which is why I chose to cook it. Also, I would easily welcome pemmican into my diet, except that is seems like an enormous bitch to make and there is no way I'm going to be smelling up my aunt's house with rendering fat for half a day. Once I go back to my own house this summer I might give it a go.

KD, there have been a few people I've seen that don't handle raw that well at all. Perhaps cooked meat can in some sense or another be easier for the body to digest or process. I still think there is something seriously wrong with my gut.

Though, yesterday after several days of little to no stool, I had one of my better turdings of the year - just too thin, giving me the feeling that something is trapped all along the walls of my colon. So, good news nonetheless, perhaps the HCL had something to do with it.

I'm also going to go do a blood test in the next couple weeks. I think its about time, 4 months on the diet should have given me enough time for my blood nutrient levels to settle to a level that should give significant results. Now, I just need to know what kinds of tests to get, what to look for, and whether or not I should even bother going to a doctor in the first place. I wouldn't mind just going directly to the lab and bypassing the appointment.

Forgot to add - energy during the day is pretty horrible. Still a lot of pain just moving around or even standing up straight. The late afternoons through the night seem to be a bit better after I come home from work.

Also, any suggestions on what to get tested for besides the normal, TGL, HDL, LDL, Serum D, white blood cells?

I'm thinking thyroid - TSH, T3, T4

I agree, we shouldn't be developing technologies designed to make us live longer or survive longer etc.

As for how people would be weeded out, I have absolutely no problems with a worldwide IQ test to determine who gets their tubes tied or not, as I have always scored 125 at the very lowest, and 170 IQ at the very highest point(depending on which type of test or type of intelligence tested).   

lol, I would actually choose to wipe you out based on this comment alone. good game TD

I just read it and overall, I thinks its very good and just a complete bombardment of everything imaginable against vegetarianism - mainly grains and soy. The one aspect of the book that was annoying was that, there were many instances where the arguments she makes go unchecked. I remember thinking how easily I could bring up some counter points (not that I know I'm right) that she would have a hard time arguing against. She would have benefited a great deal from posting on message boards like this one, where my arguing skills have sharpened immensely.

But, she did research the book well and it shows and the information inside is priceless even if the logic does get derailed every so often. The last bit of the book was easily the most controversial and most worthless. She kind of goes into the abyss when she recommends not reproducing and getting rid of anything reliant on fossil fuels. I am strongly against the reproduction argument. I think its actually pretty absurd. Reproducing children in vibrant health because of our diets is one of the best weapons we have to fix the future.

Been there, done that. It used to be so bad at times in high school that they'd think I cheated.
I'd take a math test and finish in less than 10 minutes with nothing written out other than answers while it took the rest of the class 30+ minutes and they'd have a page or two of scrap paper filled out with their calculations.

I'm not alone, again. Nice!

I forgot to mention my liver flush experiment which I did not continue in miami for the 5 days I was there. I did have about 4 egg yolks with some limie juice and a touch of coconut oil a couple nights ago, which produced nothing interesting the next day. My stools seem to be backed up significantly again. If you recall I was having tremendous difficulty, with horrible pain passing malformed stools at the end of my first two months of raw carnivore. The stools became painless once I added carbs, but never even got close to normalcy. I keep talking about stools in my journal since they seem to give me immediate feedback, though I still do not know how to interpret them.

I'm going to restart HCL pills which I only took a few times and thought they were worhtless after getting no burn. I found another journal online of a zc'er who had a very similar reaction to me with the pills. He took 6 one meal, then 8 and eventually up to 20 650 mg pills without a burn. But, he stuck with it, but kept his intake much lower and eventually got down to a more reasonable number. I'm not sure he got down to 0, but he did feel something after 6-8 IIRC. This got me very hopeful and so I took 7-8 HCL pills last night after my meal and felt nothing of course, but it didn't bother me as much because of the other guy's experience. His journal can be found here - http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/archive/index.php/thread-2386-1.html

He suffered from poor anaerobic performance and never got to the level he wanted to be at in the 8 months of zero-carbing, even with his much improved digestion with the HCL. He's now doing a Matt Stone inspired High Everything Diet (now renamed RRARF, which I have my own inconclusive opinions on that I will talk about later). I have never had trouble with weightlifting and in fact increased my lifts significantly going vlc/zc.

Today and yesterday I felt what it was like to be both not depressed but physically incapable of doing much. More so yesterday, but the 5 day break away from the computer and in social situations almost all the time with little isolation, as well as being outside seemed to really erase some mental instability. I called one of my good friends that I had not talked to in a year or longer. I emailed her a couple months ago telling her I would call very soon. I kept putting off this call and was in fact kind of dreading it the entire time. Well, I somehow just called her up and had a really inspiring conversation that lasted for more than 2 hours. It was effortless most of the time and I was able to produce uninterrupted streams of thoughts that connected well with her. My mind seems to be in a much better place and this was without any bookwork, just stepping out into the open. I finally feel like talking to the opposite sex in the way that I want to.

The interview was excellent and you sounded great and healthy, nothing at all how you described it.

Eating lean meat only isn't a problem, I set new PRs last night on my bench (Incline+Flat), Snatch and Weighted Dips, it's only a problem if you are under 5.8% body fat.

"In a study of these elite troops, body fat percent dropped from 14.3% at the start of the course to an average of 5.8% at the end. Fat Mass declined according to initial fatness. The body fat loss ceased at a point where each man still carried 2.5 Kg of body fat. This apparently represents a lower limit of body fat loss in healthy men.

In a few soldiers, bodyweight loss, but not body fat loss, continued after reaching this low Fat Mass. This bodyweight loss was fully accounted for by losses in Lean Body Mass. At a critical point in bodyweight loss, the body chooses to spare its remaining fat reserves. Now, instead of losing fat, it sacrifices proteins (muscles and organs) to provide fuel. " P. 196, UDS, Dr. Greggory Ellis

Maybe an extreme amount of lean would be bad, but then, other than sex and sports, everything extreme is bad for you.

I actually agree, that at least in the short term, eating just lean meat, might not be a problem at all, as long as you are not eating too much protein. The simplest explanation for this would be that, as long as you had enough body fat, all your energy needs should come straight from your own body, with the protein sparing your muscle and providing much needed glucose for proper brain function through gluconeogenesis. Very overweight people can actually not eat for very long periods of time, provided they are given a few supplements for mineral and vitamin balance. Lyle McDonald has a book on a diet called the protein-sparing modified fast that is designed to get you to safely lose the most weight in the least amount of time. You simply eat just enough protein to spare muscle and essential fats and the rare carb refeed.

Now, whether this will disturb your metabolism in the future is a huge question for concern. In keys famous starvation study, the men regained all their fat stores and more very quickly after refeeding. I can't remember if the study lasted long enough to see if their fat stores eventually went back to their pre-study amounts.