Zero-carb trials re well-done meats

[TylerDurden]

I've just finished doing a review of Stefansson's book not by bread alone (for update to rawpaleodietcom soonest). In the process, I noticed Stefansson making a claim that something in meats (provided they are not cooked more than between medium and well-done) prevents scurvy, whether vitamin C or something else.. My question is, has anyone ever followed a cooked zero carb diet(either here or on zerocarbage forum or elsewhere) where they only ever ate well-cooked meat for months or years, without getting scurvy? Obviously, it would be difficult to properly verify any such claims but still I'd like to know.

[pfw]

Could you clarify what you mean by "well-cooked" in relation to what Stefansson reported? Are you trying to confirm Stefansson's observation or are you trying to see if anyone has gone beyond what Stefansson reported and survived?

Pretty much everyone on the zeroinginonhealth forum eats rare/medium, some for years without apparent issue, and Owsley Stanley claims to have eaten a diet predominately composed of medium steaks since the 60s without issue.

[PaleoPhil]

Lex thinks... [see below]

[lex_rooker]

Lex thinks uric acid produced by eating cooked or raw meats is the reason people don't get scurvy from an all-muscle-meat and fat diet.

Not quite what I said.  I did state that there is a theory that uric acid is playing the same or similar anti-oxident role as vitamin C by being an electron donor and neutralizing free radicals.  It was the post that I was responding to that was expressing concern that eating meat created an overload of uric acid in the blood and therefore would lead to metebolic disorders such as heart disease and gout.

It appears that we have far more to fear from fructose when it comes to creating excess uric acid than we do with eating meat.

Lex

[TylerDurden]

Could you clarify what you mean by "well-cooked" in relation to what Stefansson reported? Are you trying to confirm Stefansson's observation or are you trying to see if anyone has gone beyond what Stefansson reported and survived?

Stefansson mentioned that he liked his meats well-done. By "well-done", he stated that that was really more cooked than "medium" but still nowhere near as burnt to a crisp like some new englanders like it when they ask for the meat to be well-done. At any rate, Stefansson seemed to be of the opinion that scurvy(or other problems) might arise if the meat was always overcooked.

So, no one claims to have eaten meats "well-done" for long periods?

[Josh]

Hmm...seems to be an urban myth going round that the inuit eat raw meat to 'avoid scurvy', but if it doesn't contain vit c either way then why would raw be better in this respect?

[TylerDurden]

Hmm...seems to be an urban myth going round that the inuit eat raw meat to 'avoid scurvy', but if it doesn't contain vit c either way then why would raw be better in this respect?

I'm afraid you're quite wrong. Raw meat does indeed contain vitamin C - raw liver has the highest vitamin C content. However, vitamin C is easily destroyed by heat, so presumably, any cooking above a certain point(medium?) would eliminate even tiny traces of vitamin C.

[invisible]

I ate zero carb cooked meat and didn't get scurvy. The idea is that Vitamin C doesn't prevent scurvy rather that hydroxylysine and hydroxyproline do and that through oxidation vitamin C can create hydroxylysine and hydroxyproline from the amino acids lysine and proline. Meat however already contains hydroxylysine and hydroxyproline ready to use. An average diet may not have enough meat in it to meet the body's hydroxylysine and hydroxyproline needs and requires some vitamin C.
http://blog.plantpoisonsandrottenstuff.info/2006/09/04/why-meat-prevents-scurvy/

[PaleoPhil]

Despite the fact that fresh meat was well-known as a practical antiscorbutic among civilian whalers and explorers in the Arctic, at the time of Scott’s mission to the antarctic, the prevailing medical theory was that scurvy was caused by “tainted” canned food, and it wasn’t until 1932 that the connection between vitamin C and scurvy was established.

Fascinating. So if this is correct, then once again everyday people knew the right thing to do, but scientists created strange theories and convinced everyone of them, eventually turning their erroneous concepts into dogmatic clubs that vegetarians used to beat meat-eaters about the head with.

[moises]

I've been eating cooked meat, usually medium or medium-well, on a zero-carb diet for more than 6 months. In that time period I did have a small serving of sashimi twice. I probably had 3 or 4 servings of meat that was rare, as well.

I have no signs of scurvy.

I registered just so I could respond to this inquiry. I am not trying to convince anyone to eat cooked meat on a zero-carb basis. So far, my experience with zero carb has not been good. I have lost weight, that I did not want to lose, probably due, in part, to increased diarrhea.

But as far as Vitamin C status goes, cooked meat works just fine.

Aside from the Stefansson book referenced in the first post, I strongly urge anyone interested in this topic to review The Uttermost Part of the Earth, by E. Lucas Bridges. The author grew up amidst the native peoples around Tierra del Fuego. One of the tribes lived almost entirely on the cooked meat of an animal that closely resembles a llama. He calls that tribe the Ona people. They suffered from no deficiencies.

[moises]

I've been eating cooked meat, usually medium or medium-well, on a zero-carb diet for more than 6 months. In that time period I did have a small serving of sashimi twice. I probably had 3 or 4 servings of meat that was rare, as well.

Just for the record, I realized that I made an error in that statement above. After I'd done about 6 months of ZC, I went a few days eating only pemmican. I made the jerky for the pemmican using the "box-fan" method, which means that I used no heat to dry the (grain-fed) beef. I only used room temperature, filtered, air from a box-fan. The fat used in the pemmican was rendered. But, I did have what some might call raw meat for a few days.

By the way, I got a lot of diarrhea, and felt lousy. But, maybe I just didn't give it enough time. The problem was that it took me weeks to accumulate enough jerky to supply me for 3-4 days of consumption.