Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Members' Journals => Journals => Topic started by: TylerDurden on August 12, 2008, 04:25:39 am
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This is not meant as a regular diary! I've always hated diaries, and could never find the time to put in daily entries. But I will try to put in occasional entries, when I can.
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When's the next occasional entry going to be?
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I've decided to let this topic drop. Instead, I'll occasionally post details re my meals in the "what are you eating?" thread.
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Ah, what the hell, I'll try resurrecting the thread, and see if I can stay the course.Won't always be able to add stuff every day.
OK, today(and yesterday, combined)
, I'm eating 1 or 2 kilos of raw grassfed/naturally-reared lamb shoulder(with weight of bone included)
. Also eating 3 small boxes of, variously, strawberries and blueberries and rasperries(all organic) and a banana or three. Oh, and 2 boxes of raw quail eggs.
. I've been doing a rare experiment by adding in lots of black pepper to the meats. I've noticed, interestingly, that my bowel movements have been more frequent as a result(I've only been adding in carbs as of this friday, mostly, so it wasn't the carbs but the pepper which was responsible). I have to admit to being rather concerned as to how bowel movements are so infrequent when only eating raw meats. I suspect that the spices somehow speed up digestion and/or passage through the bowels.
I'm currently lacking in raw
suet/raw marrow as I usually have to buy sizeable amounts lasting a couple of months and I'm about to go abroad in July and need to clean out my fridge. So, marrow/suet I'll get again in August, and make do in the meantime. I can get grainfed suet/marrow in Italy but it tastes no good and is, IMO, useless nutritionally-speaking,
so I'll mostly be getting grassfed horsemeat over there when I leave the UK(The UK forbids sale of horsemeat for UK consumption).
Oh yes, I'm also taking raw fermented cod liver oil from blue ice here and there.
Current situation:- I'm about to enter the lobster season and I'll be ordering them this sunday (live) from my local fisherman. Unfortunately, the samphire-season , I think, only starts in July. Samphire is a very good herb/plant by the way - I eat it in minor amounts while in italy as it's one of the few plants which thrives on beaches(it needs the salt from the sea-air). Samphire is also what "salt-marsh"-fed sheep/cattle largely
feed on that makes their meat taste even better, reportedly, than standard grassfed meats.
As the horrible summer comes up yet again, I've had to cut my hair as short as possible. Also, whenever summer approaches, I tend to find that eating too much raw animal fat
makes me feel far too hot. This experience
is counter to some silly remarks made by Aajonus and Stefansson re animal-fat consumption supposedly making one more resistant to the heat. So, I tend to significantly
up my raw-carb-intake/reduce animal-food-intake
in the summer(also, in order to enhance my sporting performance as I always do far more exercise then) and I also fast. Fasting really does seem to cool me down as well, so I sometimes do that. Indeed, lots of sunshine does seem to reduce my appetite, perhaps due to more
vitamin d-production being stimulated by sunlight?
The heat of summer always makes me feel irritated. Of course, the main reason for the heat is not the heat itself but the fact that we have outdated , absurd notions re nudism being improper. Clothes are simply not necessary unless one is living in a semi-Arctic environment, and are an anachronism given the presence of central heating everywhere.
At the moment, I'm considering going to brixton market in a few days so as to buy some raw goatmeat. I love the pungent stench of goatmeat.
Sadly, we've passed the goose-egg season which was nice.
Ah yes, here is my testimonial:-
http://old.rawpaleodiet.com/geoff-purcell/
Been doing a RVAF diet for c.7 years(almost 8 , now), if one includes a disastrous phase or two involving the primal diet, among others.
Oh, forgot to mention that I take regular supplements of (raw) adrenal, (raw) thyroid and organic organ delight from dr ron's website: drrons.com I also eat whole raw organ-meats but am unable to get hold of raw glands like thyroid or adrenals here in the UK so it's 1 of my 2 compromises re supplements.
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I have also noticed a somewhat reduced taste for raw fat as it's started warming up. And I've had to start drinking coconut water again, regular water just doesn't satisfy me completely - that and the electrolyte replenishment I think is a good think (particularly in the desert). From what I've read tho, carbs burn 'hotter' than fats - more heat is released in the chemical reaction than with fats, which might be why Aajonus says they will keep you cooler in the summer. But then again paleo carbs generally come with water, which always seems to absorb and satisfy my thirst better than water.
Of course some would ask, why not burn carbs in the winter then? But to do that would require a constant intake of them for burning, which would have your insulin / glucagon response varying considerably (and is not realistic or practical anyways). Fats can supply a steady state long lasting heat, even if you haven't eaten in awhile.
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I've been doing a rare experiment by adding in lots of black pepper to the meats. I've noticed, interestingly, that my bowel movements have been more frequent as a result(I've only been adding in carbs as of this friday, mostly, so it wasn't the carbs but the pepper which was responsible). I have to admit to being rather concerned as to how bowel movements are so infrequent when only eating raw meats. I suspect that the spices somehow speed up digestion and/or passage through the bowels.
What gave you the idea that you need black pepper? Lots of black pepper is not paleo and plant oils / plants cause harm over time (just like grains...)
http://www.essentialoils.co.za/essential-oils/black-pepper.htm
Nicola
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Hey Tyler,
What started to happen to you where you needed to reincorporate carbs/plant foods into your diet? I'm just wondering because I feel my best when I'm strictly eating meat/fat/organs, but I haven't been at it for very long yet. I was trying to find the answer in your old posts, but you've been here forever and it's hard to find.
Thanks,
Rob
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What gave you the idea that you need black pepper? Lots of black pepper is not paleo and plant oils / plants cause harm over time (just like grains...)
http://www.essentialoils.co.za/essential-oils/black-pepper.htm
Nicola
]
I just thought I'd do an experiment with various raw spices. Part of the problem I have, currently, is that while there are many raw animal food restaurants in London(ie Japanese Sashimi restaurants), it's more difficult to be raw when eating indoors. Being able to eat raw salads and occasionally using spices means I'm more used to eating like others. For example, using raw spices can help me overcome some of the disgusting taste of various cooked foods.
As regards plants, I have had enough personal experience that makes it clear that raw plants, especially fruits, are essential for optimum human health, albeit in small quantities. No plant-food whatsoever in the diet, at best greatly reduces physical performance, and, for many people such as myself, it causes very terminal health-problems in the long run.
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From what I've read tho, carbs burn 'hotter' than fats - more heat is released in the chemical reaction than with fats, which might be why Aajonus says they will keep you cooler in the summer. But then again paleo carbs generally come with water, which always seems to absorb and satisfy my thirst better than water.
Simply put, eating lots of raw animal fat while skiing in winter makes me much more resistant to the cold than eating raw carbs.So I have my doubts re this Aajonus notion, given my additional experience re animal fat and summer heat.
Re fruit:- yes, I agree. As soon as I eat raw fruit, my water-intake drops. It's only during VLC or zero-carb trials that my mineral-water-intake goes way up.
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Hey Tyler,
What started to happen to you where you needed to reincorporate carbs/plant foods into your diet? I'm just wondering because I feel my best when I'm strictly eating meat/fat/organs, but I haven't been at it for very long yet. I was trying to find the answer in your old posts, but you've been here forever and it's hard to find.
Thanks,
Rob
I've done c.3 raw, zero-carb trials., each lasting c. 5-6 weeks or so, the last one being a couple of years or so ago(2-3?). I've been doing rawpalaeo(LC or VLC) for 8 years, in general. I'm afraid that people have been making wrong assumptions, as my allexperts.com page was rather unclear on the issue(up till now, a lot of people seem to have gotten the erroneous impression that I was doing a 100% raw, fatty organ-meats diet or something.
Basically, every time I went zero-carb , I would experience the following effects:- at first, for the first 2 weeks, I'd get greater focus/alertness, and greatly decreased physical performance/endurance. Then, after that, by the 3rd week, I would quickly get decreased alertness, chronic fatigue, panic attacks, ravenous hunger(for carbs) and I would have to struggle to force myself to eat even tiny amounts of raw animal food. After several weeks of this, I would get deep black circles under the eyes and loose, weakened teeth - both kinds of symptoms I had before going rawpalaeo(and during my raw-dairy-phase). I'd lose a lot of weight due to the lack of appetite and the ravenous hunger for carbs interfered with my daily life, to a huge extent.I'd also get panic-attacks(especially on one occasion, when while zero-carb I tried some heated suet, for taste-reasons, but at other times as well. I'd , in addition, feel forced to drink vast amounts of mineral-water, due to excessive thirst, but no amount of water was enough as I really needed some raw fruit, instead. By the 5th/6th weeks, life became an absolute hell, getting additional headaches etc. etc., and I would feel literally like I was dying, so I had no choice but to give up on raw, zero-carb or face hospitalisation, and, eventually, death.
I remember hearing something being claimed on various diet-forums about how going zero-carb puts an excessive strain on one's glandular system. So that, presumably, people with a reasonably healthy glandular system, from the get-go, might be fine on it, whether for a period or even in the long-term. But anyone who has ever had issues with their (adrenal/thyroid etc.) glands in the past(which is a majority of those on SAD-diets, IMO), even if they've healed as a result of raw foods, night be well advised to stay away from zero-carb like the plague.
Of course, it's just a theory, like any other.
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As regards plants, I have had enough personal experience that makes it clear that raw plants, especially fruits, are essential for optimum huma health, albeit in small quantities. No plant-food whatsoever in the diet, at best greatly reduces physical performance, and, for many people such as myself, it causes very terminal health-problems in the long run.
Tyler, I appreciate your experiences with a zero-carb approach way of eating, but are you drawing a conclusion about what is optimum for human health solely from your personal experiences or is there more to it? My experience is the complete opposite of yours. In fact, I didn't even know zero-carb was some way of eating, I arrived at it by eliminating all the foods that gave me horrible abdominal pains. Sick and tired of going extensions without eating to avoid pain, and then enduring the pain when I did finally eat I thought, 'okay this is it... there has got to be at least one food that won't make me ill that I can eat'. I didn't care if it was olives (I hate olives, lol), but I was determined to find a source of compatible nourishment. And I did, turns out to be eggs, meat, fish... and here I am at this forum! I cannot express the relief I have to actually be able to enjoy eating, it's so much that the social barriers that exist (I know I've caused them myself, but nonetheless...) are so secondary. It's only been few months, but I don't have any decrease in physical activity whatsoever, I'm sure. I won't go so far as to say it has increased, but probably since I'm actually eating now and I'm happier. Are you suggesting I should be worried for my long-term health?
Thanks,
Ioanna
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Are you suggesting I should be worried for my long-term health?
maybe it is good for you to do zero-carb for some period of time, so that you'll heal from your abdominal problems
but cutting all carbs and eating only "meat and fat" for the rest of your life wouldn't be good - that's certainly not paleo
albeit for now this zero-carb could be the only option :)
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As regards plants, I have had enough personal experience that makes it clear that raw plants, especially fruits, are essential for optimum huma health, albeit in small quantities. No plant-food whatsoever in the diet, at best greatly reduces physical performance, and, for many people such as myself, it causes very terminal health-problems in the long run.
I know you know it all better - so take your pepper (laxative) and eat your fruit for optimum humane health :(
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I know you know it all better - so take your pepper (laxative) and eat your fruit for optimum humane health :(
*sigh* - I wasn't suggesting that I need to eat raw spices all the time. It's just an experiment.
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Tyler, I appreciate your experiences with a zero-carb approach way of eating, but are you drawing a conclusion about what is optimum for human health solely from your personal experiences or is there more to it? My experience is the complete opposite of yours. In fact, I didn't even know zero-carb was some way of eating, I arrived at it by eliminating all the foods that gave me horrible abdominal pains. Sick and tired of going extensions without eating to avoid pain, and then enduring the pain when I did finally eat I thought, 'okay this is it... there has got to be at least one food that won't make me ill that I can eat'. I didn't care if it was olives (I hate olives, lol), but I was determined to find a source of compatible nourishment. And I did, turns out to be eggs, meat, fish... and here I am at this forum! I cannot express the relief I have to actually be able to enjoy eating, it's so much that the social barriers that exist (I know I've caused them myself, but nonetheless...) are so secondary. It's only been few months, but I don't have any decrease in physical activity whatsoever, I'm sure. I won't go so far as to say it has increased, but probably since I'm actually eating now and I'm happier. Are you suggesting I should be worried for my long-term health?
Thanks,
Ioanna
I am not suggesting that zero-carb is automatically a disaster for everyone. What concerns me, though, is this:- most Arctic tribes do eat berries in summer, even if they eat practically 99-100% meats, raw or cooked, at other times. They , presumably, also eat the fermented stomach-contents(ie plant-matter) of the animal-carcasses they cut up. So, 100% carnivorous diet for life, for humans, may be rarer than expected.
Plus, a lot of people do very badly on zero-carb, raw or otherwise, judging from reports of RPDers. I'm not the only one. Though, I'll grant that the overwhelming majority of people do better on raw,low-carb(<35%) than raw, high-carb(like Instincto)(80%+ raw plant-foods).
While there are individual differences in adaptation or non-adaptation to zero-carb, the evidence re loss of physical performance is pretty much across the board - I'm assuming you do low-level exercise so don't notice much difference? Certainly, I (and a number of raw athletes on other groups) have noticed a distinct, massive drop in physical performance when cutting out all carbs from the diet, such as having no endurance or losing physical strength. Plus most photos of long-term zero-carbers show them to be rather too light of weight and not very muscular(indeed same happens to me when I've been extremely VLC or 0 carb) , requiring quite some time to recover from very harsh exercise etc.. This is in stark contrast to the widely reported massive physical attributes/exercise-levels of Palaeo tribespeople, (re evidence of bones), which seems to imply, IMO, that these Cro-Magnon must have had some carbs in their diet. To date, it has been pointed out that no modern athlete nowadays follow a genuine zero-carb diet, which rather proves things.
Still, you certainly seem to be doing the right thing for now. That is, you're just doing whatever works for you now and discarding what doesn't, rather than following a dietary philosophy - so keep at it since it's working, and change it in slight ways via experimentation, should it ever not work any more.
(I once made the mistake of believing in some Primal Dieters' claims that my symptoms from raw dairy were just "detox" and/or that I was somehow uniquely guilty/at fault for having a "leaky gut" or some such nonsense - the result was it took me 6 months before I realised my health was way more important than following the rules of any diet, and cut out the raw dairy(and subsequently healed). Since then, while I do believe in the concept of detox, I find that a genuine detox is one which is relatively minor and of short duration - a fake detox is when the symptoms you have keep on getting worse and never improving the longer you're doing things wrong re diet).
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I am not suggesting that zero-carb is automatically a disaster for everyone. What concerns me, though, is this:- most Arctic tribes do eat berries in summer, even if they eat practically 99-100% meats, raw or cooked, at other times. They , presumably, also eat the fermented stomach-contents(ie plant-matter) of the animal-carcasses they cut up. So, 100% carnivorous diet for life, for humans, may be rarer than expected.
That's very true
look at the coyotes - they are carnivorous, they do like carrion, but they also eat some fruits and vegetables
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While there are individual differences in adaptation or non-adaptation to zero-carb, the evidence re loss of physical performance is pretty much across the board - I'm assuming you do low-level exercise so don't notice much difference? Certainly, I (and a number of raw athletes on other groups) have noticed a distinct, massive drop in physical performance when cutting out all carbs from the diet, such as having no endurance or losing physical strength. Plus most photos of long-term zero-carbers show them to be rather too light of weight and not very muscular(indeed same happens to me when I've been extremely VLC or 0 carb) , requiring quite some time to recover from very harsh exercise etc.. This is in stark contrast to the widely reported massive physical attributes/exercise-levels of Palaeo tribespeople, (re evidence of bones), which seems to imply, IMO, that these Cro-Magnon must have had some carbs in their diet. To date, it has been pointed out that no modern athlete nowadays follow a genuine zero-carb diet, which rather proves things.
I experienced lack of power and excessively long recovery time after work out if carbs are too low.
I believe low carb/very low carb is the best human nutrition strategy.
While zero carb may be good in some pathological case or if one is not doing loads of hard exercise, it is not generally affordable by relatively ambitious athletes.
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That's very true
look at the coyotes - they are carnivorous, they do like carrion, but they also eat some fruits and vegetables
My understanding is that canines are opportunistic carnivores. They will supposedly only eat plant foods if there are insufficient flesh foods available. So while they can survive on some plant foods, their optimal diet is believed to be 100% carnivore or very nearly so. Years ago I looked up analyses of African wild dog diets and they were 100% carnivorous--apparently there was sufficient prey available.
Here are some of the sources I found at the time (there may be some expired links):
African Wild Dog
http://www.whozoo.org/Intro98/michaelg/michgree.htm
Wild Dogs: Lowveld Wild Dogs Project
http://www.mluri.sari.ac.uk/wilddogs/wddiet.htm
African Wild Dog: Habitat & Diet
http://www.123spot.com/AnimalDirectory/africanwilddogs2.htm
Third Kruger Park Wild Dog Photographic Survey
http://www.parks-sa.co.za/conservation/scientific_services/ss_wild_dog_survey.html
Did anyone who lost strength or endurance on zero carb try pemmican as an energy source? Some people have claimed that works as well for them as carbs.
Interesting perspectives here. Playing devil's advocate, how does one explain those Greenland Inuit who were found to be 99% carnivore on average (meaning that some individuals must have been 100% carnivore), with only small amounts of summer berries eaten by some? Must we assume that they had low energy and strength? How did they find the energy to hunt whale? On the other hand, most Inuit in other areas were found to eat more plant foods than that.
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My understanding is that canines are opportunistic carnivores. They will supposedly only eat plant foods if there are insufficient flesh foods available. So while they can survive on some plant foods, their optimal diet is believed to be 100% carnivore or very nearly so.
Even if you are right about canines being opportunistic it is still true that in natural wild environment carnivorous have also eaten some berries and plants for millions of years
being 100% carnivorous is then unnatural
Interesting perspectives here. Playing devil's advocate, how does one explain those Greenland Inuit who were found to be 99% carnivore on average (meaning that some individuals must have been 100% carnivore), with only small amounts of summer berries eaten by some? Must we assume that they had low energy and strength? How did they find the energy to hunt whale? On the other hand, most Inuit in other areas were found to eat more plant foods than that.
yeah, I do know quite a lot about Innuits and their diet
but they haven't lived in natural environment for humans - hence their lifespan has been shorter
homo sapiens has lived for millions of years in warm climate and fruits and plants have been present in their diet
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Interesting perspectives here. Playing devil's advocate, how does one explain those Greenland Inuit who were found to be 99% carnivore on average (meaning that some individuals must have been 100% carnivore), with only small amounts of summer berries eaten by some? Must we assume that they had low energy and strength? How did they find the energy to hunt whale? On the other hand, most Inuit in other areas were found to eat more plant foods than that.
Re dogs:- I believe that dogs can be fed on veg. Indeed, some extreme vegans force their dogs to eat only vegan or vegeterian meals. It's only cats who are obligate carnivores.
Re "Paleophil":- Out of curiosity, are you also the "Paleophil" on the paleofood list?
Re pemmican:- Well, I've never felt the need to eat pemmican. Pemmican, after all, isn't a raw food, so it's only really seen as a possibility for those raw, zero-carbers who refuse to eat any carbs at all, and who find themselves in a situation where they can't find decent equivalent raw food sources. Most RAFers, instead, find that eating amounts of raw carbs(like raw fruit), during times of meat-scarcity, is a far better alternative to eating cooked-animal-food as the latter generally gives detox-reactions(eg:- a hangover-like effect) once consumed, while eating raw fruit does no such harm(at least not to raw low-carbers).
While I haven't bothered to try pemmican, partly due to rather negative reactions to cooked-foods and partly due to the excessive waste of time involved in preparing any cooked-/processed foods, I have gone in for eating heated suet(as a taste-experiment) , some years ago while attempting zero-carb. The effects were disastrous, and made me realise that cooked-animal-fat is something my body finds highly toxic(however 100% grassfed/organic it may be), more toxic, indeed, than cooked lean meat or even cooked carbs. So heated animal fats are not a solution for me re increasing physical activity, quite the opposite.
(I've done some experiments when walking in the Alps, with a sort of equivalent "raw pemmican"(ie nothing processed, just carrying with me some lean-meats mixed in with raw marrow or suet. of course, the stuff would rapidly rot due to the meat but I'd consume it mostly or wholly within 5 days, regardless. Inevitably, by the 3rd day, I would be utterly exhausted, with no stamina, and no amount of the lean-meat/fat mixture would help re increasing endurance. I'd end up looking ridiculous and having to rest constantly for 5 minutes each time while other hikers sauntereed past me).
Other points re pemmican:- Not only does high heat have to be used on pemmican in order to preserve it for ages, which casues an increased level of heat-created toxins to appear, but, any foods, even raw foods, that are stored for very long periods tend to develop oxidisation(oxidised fats are very toxic) and rancidity etc.. Now, sealing pemmican in vacuum-packs and freezing it can prevent(or slow down?) the rancidity and the oxidation, but the issue of heat-created toxins still remains. Plus, the whole raison-d'etre of raw-foodism is to eat foods in fresh form. As someone else pointed out on another forum, pemmican is no different from much of the cooked/processed junk-food that's designed by supermarkets to last for months/years on the shelves. It;'s the same princicple involved:- lowering the quality of the food so as to extend its storage-life.
re the above point re oxidation(taken from other group):-
> And if you're concerned about the possibility of cancer (as we all
> should be in this toxic world we've created for ourselves), here's a
> quote from the Summary of Holistic Cancer Therapy in "Overcoming
> Cancer" by Walter Last:
>
>
>
> "Furthermore, [in cancer] there is commonly a deterioration in the
> lipid (fat-related) composition of the cell walls that allows toxins
> to enter the cells, and prevents waste residue from being removed. The
> main cause of this deterioration is the habitual consumption of heated
> or oxidized fats, and a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids as in fish
> oils and linseed oil [and, he should have added, in grassfed animal
> fat]."
Re Inuit:- Well, it depends on the source and who you believe, I guess. If I were to believe Michael from the RAV-Food list, he's an anti-PUFA campaigner who believes that the Inuit were afflicted with rapid aging as a result of their diet(he refers to Stefansson's well-known comment in the fat of the land boook etc., about how the Inuit he saw aged much faster than people on standard(lower-PUFA diets)). He was more concerned with the PUFA issue, but it could always have been the zero-carbs which were at fault.
Another point is that the Inuit are following diets quite unlike what the vast majority of (raw or cooked) zero-carbers are doing. The Inuit(on traditional diets), after all, eat vast amounts of seafood, raw or cooked, including plenty of aged meats and a variety of organ-meats, yet most zero-carbers don't seem to value either aged meat , let alone seafood, they just concentrate on fatty muscle-meats and water, for the most part, which is not very much like the Inuit diet of rotting whalemeat, seal-blubber etc.
Also, it's been claimed by some scientists that the Inuit have specially adapted, on a genetic level, to zero-carb diets over many generations, so that they're less affected than people who start them only later in life etc.. This makes some sense if you've read about the science of "epigenetics" which has shown how smoking by a grandfather can, for instance, influence the gene-expression of their grandchildren etc.
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On pemmican, we have the conundrum of the record of the voyageurs who drove (with paddles!) the fur trade canoes thousands of miles across Canada fuelled entirely by pemmican and the rare herbs they could gather along the way such as wild onion and or garlic.
It's possible that the fat used to make their pemmican was not what we think.
Inuit diet: I was in Stefansson territory, about 140 miles NE of Tuktoyaktuk in the summer and never saw a berry, bush nor heard of anyone ever gathering such a thing. AFAIK it's the same all the way to the Davis Strait. The berry-eating Inuit must be the Alaskans and Greenlanders who live in relatively warm places.
IMHO they aged relatively quickly because of the polluted air in their dwelling places. Soot, eh?
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Even if you are right about canines being opportunistic it is still true that in natural wild environment carnivorous have also eaten some berries and plants for millions of years
being 100% carnivorous is then unnatural
It's also true that the evidence suggests the primary and optimal diet for canines in the wild is carnivorous and that plant foods are basically last-resort foods. I would need to see counter-evidence before I would believe that 100% carnivore is unnatural for canines. They are not obligate carnivores, but to say that 100% carnivorous is therefore "unnatural" for them seems a stretch. That would seem to be like saying that eating beef and fish is unnatural if one doesn't also eat pork. Canines appear to do very well indefinitely on a carnivorous diet (and I also know some pet owners who have fed their dogs 100% carnivorous diets for many years and the dogs are apparently doing well). If you check those links I provided you'll find that the wild dog diets that were analyzed did not include any plant foods at all.
I do know quite a lot about Innuits and their diet
but they haven't lived in natural environment for humans - hence their lifespan has been shorter
homo sapiens has lived for millions of years in warm climate and fruits and plants have been present in their diet
Yes, but my question was how can we claim that a zero carb diet results in zero energy when zero-carb Inuit hunted whales? I eat some plant foods myself, so I'm not arguing against eating any plant foods, but I recognize that whale-hunting takes some energy.
Re dogs:- I believe that dogs can be fed on veg. Indeed, some extreme vegans force their dogs to eat only vegan or vegeterian meals. UIt's only cats who are obligate carnivores.
Quite right, and many of those extreme vegans use the bogus argument that if dogs can eat plant foods that they must be very good for them and therefore don't need meat. Again, I'm not arguing that dogs are obligate carnivores and I acknowledged from the start that they can eat some plant foods. That doesn't mean that plant foods are necessarily optimal for them. A dog owner once claimed to me that pancakes must be good for his dog because his dog likes them. Humans can eat and survive on the SAD diet, but that doesn't mean that SAD is optimal for humans.
Re "Paleophil":- Out of curiosity, are you also the "Paleophil" on the paleofood list?
Yes.
Re pemmican:- Well, I've never felt the need to eat pemmican. Pemmican, after all, isn't a raw food, so it's only really seen as a possibility for those raw, zero-carbers who refuse to eat any carbs at all, and who find themselves in a situation where they can't find decent equivalent raw food sources.
OK, thanks for clarifying that. So if I decide to try zero carb and don't mind eating some tallow that has been heated, it sounds like pemmican would supply energy, though it might have other negative effects you talk about.
Most RAFers, instead, find that eating amounts of raw carbs(like raw fruit), during times of meat-scarcity, is a far better alternative to eating cooked-animal-food as the latter generally gives detox-reactions(eg:- a hangover-like effect) once consumed, while eating raw fruit does no such harm(at least not to raw low-carbers).
It's interesting to see the different perspectives between the zero-carbers and 99-100% rawists. Zero-carbers tend to claim the opposite--that they get toxic reactions from eating carbs, but not necessarily from some cooked food--even if they eat mostly raw. I'll bet there have been some hum-dinger arguments over it. :-) I'm not currently doing either 100%--just learning with an open mind at this point.
.... So heated animal fats are not a solution for me re increasing physical activity, quite the opposite.
Yeah, it definitely sounds like they didn't work for you.
I'm interested in pemmican as a convenience food and more socially acceptable food than raw meat, in addition to the long storage life. If I experience the terrible effects that you did with it I won't keep eating it, but so far I haven't. My other alternative semi-Paleo convenience food is mixes of nuts and dried fruits--basically trail mix. I find nuts alone to be too dry and bland. I do well overall on trail mixes, but my dental health fares a bit worse than with jerky and pemmican, and since I've moved toward a more carnivorous diet (though I still include raw organic spring greens, berries, bananas and some other foods I seem to do well on), I've had some amazing improvements in my teeth and gums and in other ways.
Another point is that the Inuit are following diets quite unlike what the vast majority of (raw or cooked) zero-carbers are doing. The Inuit(on traditional diets), after all, eat vast amounts of seafood, raw or cooked, including plenty of aged meats and a variety of organ-meats, yet most zero-carbers don't seem to value either aged meat , let alone seafood, they just concentrate on fatty muscle-meats and water, for the most part, which is not very much like the Inuit diet of rotting whalemeat, seal-blubber etc.
OK, so what I'm getting out of this is, that if the right special foods are included then there will be sufficient energy provided by a zero-carb diet, but it may be difficult to get them in the modern societies or they may have carcinogenic or aging effects.
Also, it's been claimed by some scientists that the Inuit have specially adapted, on a genetic level, to zero-carb diets over many generations, so that they're less affected than people who start them only later in life etc.. This makes some sense if you've read about the science of "epigenetics" which has shown how smoking by a grandfather can, for instance, influence the gene-expression of their grandchildren etc.
I don't buy that one. The people who claim that tend to be vegetarians/vegans with a predetermined agenda, looking for excuses to justify it. I say to them, "Show me the evidence." Most of the Inuit are believed to have migrated to the Arctic less than 10,000 years ago--some mere centuries ago. I am familiar with epigenetics, but I haven't seen scientists use it to explain the Inuit paradox. Also, there are people right in this forum and others who have been doing near-zero-carb for years without apparent ill effect. Doesn't mean it's good for everyone, of course--just means that we don't need epigenetics to explain Inuit survival and energy on zero carb diets.
Plus, if we claim that the Inuit underwent a special adaptation to zero carb via epigenetics in under 10,000 years, then we would also have to take seriously the vegetarian/vegan claims that people from societies that have been eating grains for 10-20,000 years (the date keeps getting pushed back as roasted grains are found at older and older cooksites) and yams for far longer have also adapted via epigenetics. We can't use the argument ourselves and not allow our critics to do the same.
Thanks for the input. It's good to get different perspectives.
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OK, thanks for clarifying that. So if I decide to try zero carb and don't mind eating some tallow that has been heated, it sounds like pemmican would supply energy, though it might have other negative effects you talk about.
It's interesting to see the different perspectives between the zero-carbers and 99-100% rawists. Zero-carbers tend to claim the opposite--that they get toxic reactions from eating carbs, but not necessarily from some cooked food--even if they eat mostly raw. I'll bet there have been some hum-dinger arguments over it. :-) I'm not currently doing either 100%--just learning with an open mind at this point.
Yes, it is interesting. What I found when doing extreme VLC or zero-carb was that I quickly couldn't tolerate most raw carbs any more. At first, it would be fruits like dates, then it would even include berries, if I did VLC or 0-carb long enough. The standard explanation for this is NOT that carbs are themselves unhealthy, but that the bacteria which feed on/digest carbs in the gut get wiped out if no carbs are consumed for long periods, thus making digestion of carbs more difficult. As regards the cooked-food-issue, I've heard claims that detox can be stopped if one readds enough cooked-foods(c.50% of diet?) - the Aajonus interpretation of that would be that that large an amount of cooked-foods overwhelms the body thus diverting the toxins into the fat-cells instead of them being expelled.(I notice that as I quickly get obese if I eat any cooked animal food).
I should add that the raw, zero-carbers(who do mostly raw) do actually report having some detox-
issues after eating cooked-foods(you'd have to look at the archives of this and the rawpaleodiet yahoo group) but that, I presume, from the accounts, ihas less of a negative effect than the raw carbs, at least in their case.
I'm interested in pemmican as a convenience food and more socially acceptable food than raw meat, in addition to the long storage life. If I experience the terrible effects that you did with it I won't keep eating it, but so far I haven't. My other alternative semi-Paleo convenience food is mixes of nuts and dried fruits--basically trail mix. I find nuts alone to be too dry and bland. I do well overall on trail mixes, but my dental health fares a bit worse than with jerky and pemmican, and since I've moved toward a more carnivorous diet (though I still include raw organic spring greens, berries, bananas and some other foods I seem to do well on), I've had some amazing improvements in my teeth and gums and in other ways.
OK, so what I'm getting out of this is, that if the right special foods are included then there will be sufficient energy provided by a zero-carb diet, but it may be difficult to get them in the modern societies or they may have carcinogenic or aging effects.
I wouldn't necessarily call pemmican "socially acceptable". I've sen pictures of it and it sure looks disgusting in appearance. Raw fruit, by contrast, is no big deal for SAD-eaters as they do it all the time.
I don't buy that one. The people who claim that tend to be vegetarians/vegans with a predetermined agenda, looking for excuses to justify it. I say to them, "Show me the evidence." Most of the Inuit are believed to have migrated to the Arctic less than 10,000 years ago--some mere centuries ago. I am familiar with epigenetics, but I haven't seen scientists use it to explain the Inuit paradox. Also, there are people right in this forum and others who have been doing near-zero-carb for years without apparent ill effect. Doesn't mean it's good for everyone, of course--just means that we don't need epigenetics to explain Inuit survival and energy on zero carb diets.
Plus, if we claim that the Inuit underwent a special adaptation to zero carb via epigenetics in under 10,000 years, then we would also have to take seriously the vegetarian/vegan claims that people from societies that have been eating grains for 10-20,000 years (the date keeps getting pushed back as roasted grains are found at older and older cooksites) and yams for far longer have also adapted via epigenetics. We can't use the argument ourselves and not allow our critics to do the same.
Thanks for the input. It's good to get different perspectives.
What I mean is that epigenetics can easily explain Inuit adaptation as effects of epigenetics(re the grandfather/smoking connection I gave you) as it can occur over after only a few generations and the Inuit lived at least 10,000 years in the Arctic(actually, given the Bering Strait crossover, it does seem more likely that they were in the Arctic from c.15,000 BC, but anyway).
As regards adaptation to grains, remember that human(or any other) DNA is extremely fluid. For example, I get a far lower reaction to grains than most rawpalaeos, yet I have a much stronger reaction any kind of dairy than most RPDers, as well. So, IMO, there must be some limited adaptation going on(even if not remotely 100%).
Re zero-carb:- What gets me re this is the notion of needing weeks or months to get any of the supposed benefits of zero-carb. When I first started the raw ZC diet, I was told to expect a few weeks(what Stefansson said), now it's several months or years if one believes the claims.Plus, if one so much as backslides, one has to go through the whole process all over again(though perhaps at a reduced rate). And for me, anything more than 6 weeks carb-free is avery dangerous.
. I'd imagine that an Inuit bred on a near-zero-carb diet since birth would not only be much less likely to get negative effects from eating any berries in the summer but they would be better placed re epigenetics etc. to
hunt etc. while on zero-carb. But it does seem a bit of an effort to wait for most of a lifetime to get the equivalent benefits that one can get on lc or vlc.
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Forgot to mention that I haven't done much whole-day fasting until more recent times when I did a 6-day-long fast(just mineral-water, nothing else). I notice again and again that I look so much better(re glistening skin, looking handsomer, more vital etc.) when I fast. I seriously think that this has to do with the fact that the body gets increasingly burdened and worn down by the process of digestion so that too frequent eating speeds up aging:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone does a rigid regime of alternate-day fasting but not eating for a whole day, here and there should work wonders for some people. I suspect that even eating the healthiest, rawest food does place a tiny burden on the body so that constant digestion wears the body down re aging, requiring occasional palaeo-fasting to alleviate that. It's just that eating cooked foods is even worse given the additional burden of heat-created toxins in cooked-foods.
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how much mineral water you drink during a water fast?
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(I've done some experiments when walking in the Alps, with a sort of equivalent "raw pemmican"(ie nothing processed, just carrying with me some lean-meats mixed in with raw marrow or suet. of course, the stuff would rapidly rot due to the meat but I'd consume it mostly or wholly within 5 days, regardless. Inevitably, by the 3rd day, I would be utterly exhausted, with no stamina, and no amount of the lean-meat/fat mixture would help re increasing endurance. I'd end up looking ridiculous and having to rest constantly for 5 minutes each time while other hikers sauntereed past me).
Your own quote:
I've always been a cynic so I'm not one for positive thinking, despite this diet.
This is what gets in your way!
Last year you mentioned going walking in the alps and marrow was ideal. You go to Italy and mention beforehand that you will be fasting and eating more fruit (hydration) a lot because of the heat. Well when you came back you say you need to fast because you had put on weight. It's all so confusing and negative; why - it's not doing you any good???
Nicola
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Your own quote:
I've always been a cynic so I'm not one for positive thinking, despite this diet.
This is what gets in your way!
Last year you mentioned going walking in the alps and marrow was ideal. You go to Italy and mention beforehand that you will be fasting and eating more fruit (hydration) a lot because of the heat. Well when you came back you say you need to fast because you had put on weight. It's all so confusing and negative; why - it's not doing you any good???
Nicola
I think you're confusing the issue. I may have put on weight well after the holiday but that has nothing to do with the vacation. As for raw marrow, I find it an ideal food, it's just that without some raw carbs added, it becomes useless as regards physical endurance.
And my mood is a hell of a lot better than it was on a zero-carb diet. Plus, one can have a good mood but not necessarily be an optimist.
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how much mineral water you drink during a water fast?
I drink more mineral water if I don't eat at all during the day - litre and a half, perhaps? Two litres max, generally.
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...The standard explanation for this is NOT that carbs are themselves unhealthy, but that the bacteria which feed on/digest carbs in the gut get wiped out if no carbs are consumed for long periods, thus making digestion of carbs more difficult.
Ah yes. I discussed something along those lines in Lex's journal.
As regards the cooked-food-issue, I've heard claims that detox can be stopped if one readds enough cooked-foods(c.50% of diet?) - the Aajonus interpretation of that would be that that large an amount of cooked-foods overwhelms the body thus diverting the toxins into the fat-cells instead of them being expelled.
Interesting. It's at least plausible. It might be similar to how I didn't notice that gluten was doing a number on me because I was eating it so regularly that my body was constantly overwhelmed, resulting in a very gradual increase in chronic symptoms rather than a violent detox- or allergic-type reaction. It was only when I stopped eating gluten completely for over 3 weeks that my systems calmed down enough that a gluten challenge resulted in severe symptoms.
(I notice that as I quickly get obese if I eat any cooked animal food).
I almost wish that would happen to me, ;-) as I'm rather thin (I was born thin)--although I'd rather have muscle. That's one reason I'm reticent to go 100% raw--I don't want to get even thinner.
I wouldn't necessarily cal pemmican "socially acceptable". I've sen pictures of it and it sure looks disgusting in appearance.
Hah! Good one. Do you mean it looks like poop? :-D I think it kind of looks like brownies. I meant that it would be more socially acceptable than eating undried raw meat around other people. When I respond to questions with "I'm eating pemmican," people don't tend to freak out. If they ask me what it is, I say it's an old Indian convenience food. If I told them that pemmican is dried raw meat and fat they might freak out, though.
Raw fruit, by contrast, is no big deal for SAD-eaters as they do it all the time.
I've tried it. It spoils a bit too easily, smells, is messy, etc., although I sometimes do bring an apple or banana or a few strawberries to work. Unfortunately, there's no kitchen with it's own trash receptacle in my office, so fruit remnants tend to stink up the place. Plus, I like to have at least some meat. Also, jerky and fruit just doesn't satisfy me as much as it used to, now that I'm getting used to fat, so pemmican seemed like the obvious next step.
What I mean is that epigenetics can easily explain Inuit adaptation as effects of epigenetics(re the grandfather/smoking connection I gave you) as it can occur over after only a few generations and the Inuit lived at least 10,000 years in the Arctic(actually, given the Bering Strait crossover, it does seem more likely that they were in the Arctic from c.15,000 BC, but anyway).
Well, I read that they came over in waves, but if you're only talking a few generations, then it's a moot point. But then that raises the question of why I haven't adapted to the diet of the last 3 generations and more before me.
As regards adaptation to grains, remember that human(or any other) DNA is extremely fluid. For example, I get a far lower reaction to grains than most rawpalaeos, yet I have a much stronger reaction any kind of dairy than most RPDers, as well. So, IMO, there must be some limited adaptation going on(even if not remotely 100%).
Oh sure, I haven't seen anyone claim that there has been no adaptation at all over the last 10,000 years, but most scientists I've seen discuss the subject claim that our genes are not "substantially" different from what they were 100-200,000 years ago--since the time of the last species change to homo sapiens sapiens. A few vegans/vegetarians/SADers I've come across claimed that 10,000 years is more than enough to become fully adapted to agrarian foods. I highly doubt it. There's just too much evidence to the contrary. Partially, yes--but fully?
Re zero-carb:- What gets me re this is the notion of needing weeks or months to get any of the supposed benefits of zero-carb. When I first started the raw ZC diet, I was told to expect a few weeks(what Stefansson said), now it's several months or years if one believes the claims.Plus, if one so much as backslides, one has to go through the whole process all over again(though perhaps at a reduced rate). And for me, anything more than 6 weeks carb-free is avery dangerous.
I don't know. All I know is I've done better as I've cut back on the carbs. I think I'll try zero carb at some point, if for no other reason than to try it for myself and to be able to discuss it intelligently from experience with zero carbers. My guess is that I'll end up doing VLC over the long run--but I don't know aforehand.
I'd imagine that an Inuit bred on a near-zero-carb diet since birth would not only be much less likely to get negative effects from eating any berries in the summer but they would be better placed re epigenetics etc. to
hunt etc. while on zero-carb.
Agreed. I think they would also be better placed than SADers, vegans and vegetarians. Just like it sometimes takes time for a dog who has only been fed cooked and processed meat to re-acclimate to raw meat.
But it does seem a bit of an effort to wait for most of a lifetime to get the equivalent benefits that one can get on lc or vlc.
I have seen a ZCer admit that it took about a year to fully adapt to digesting 100% raw meat/fat/organs, though he reported that dramatic improvements began much earlier. It's taking me some time to adapt to animal fat (raw or cooked) and raw meat/organs too. Does that mean in your opinion I'm not adapted to eating those foods, even though I'm benefiting from them?
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I almost wish that would happen to me, ;-) as I'm rather thin (I was born thin)--although I'd rather have muscle. That's one reason I'm reticent to go 100% raw--I don't want to get even thinner.
Well, I hate to say this, but raw dairy is an effective weight-gainer for RVAFers(whether for 100% RVAFers or whatever). I've also found that if I add sufficient amounts of raw carbs that my weight goes up(and I'm 98-99% raw).1 or 2 partial-rawists have claimed that cooked-starches like potatoes were useful for weight-gain, though, understandably, I don't recommend that. Most RVAFers were, for obvious reasons given our current society, extremely obese prior to taking up RVAF diets, so they don't mind the usual weight-loss that comes with it.
Hah! Good one. Do you mean it looks like poop? :-D I think it kind of looks like brownies. I meant that it would be more socially acceptable than eating undried raw meat around other people. When I respond to questions with "I'm eating pemmican," people don't tend to freak out. If they ask me what it is, I say it's an old Indian convenience food. If I told them that pemmican is dried raw meat and fat they might freak out, though.
I've tried it. It spoils a bit too easily, smells, is messy, etc., although I sometimes do bring an apple or banana or a few strawberries to work. Unfortunately, there's no kitchen with it's own trash receptacle in my office, so fruit remnants tend to stink up the place. Plus, I like to have at least some meat. Also, jerky and fruit just doesn't satisfy me as much as it used to, now that I'm getting used to fat, so pemmican seemed like the obvious next step.
Well, no the pemmican I saw just looked like some cross between spam and candlewax.
Re fruit:- yes, it does spoil easily. However, that particularly applies to nonorganic fruit. I generally find that the higher the quality of the fruit, the longer it lasts. I've slowly come round to the whole notion of brix-values and am always looking around for higher-quality raw animal/raw plant-foods(I don't really trust the organic label, after various experiences).
Well, I read that they came over in waves, but if you're only talking a few generations, then it's a moot point. But then that raises the question of why I haven't adapted to the diet of the last 3 generations and more before me.
Oh sure, I haven't seen anyone claim that there has been no adaptation at all over the last 10,000 years, but most scientists I've seen discuss the subject claim that our genes are not "substantially" different from what they were 100-200,000 years ago--since the time of the last species change to homo sapiens sapiens. A few vegans/vegetarians/SADers I've come across claimed that 10,000 years is more than enough to become fully adapted to agrarian foods. I highly doubt it. There's just too much evidence to the contrary. Partially, yes--but fully?
Given that natural selection became nonexistent sometime in the Palaeolithic(c.200,000 years ago?), it's unlikely that all segments of the human population would equally be resistant or adaptive to specific types of foods.Plus, from what I understand, epigenetics doesn't involve any real alteration of DNA, just different gene-expression:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
I have seen a ZCer admit that it took about a year to fully adapt to digesting 100% raw meat/fat/organs, though he reported that dramatic improvements began much earlier. It's taking me some time to adapt to animal fat (raw or cooked) and raw meat/organs too. Does that mean in your opinion I'm not adapted to eating those foods, even though I'm benefiting from them?
I'm saying that adaptation to a healthy (raw)food should really take only a few months(barring serious digestion-related issues like a seriously damaged liver/pancreas etc.) I can only base this on mine and others experience, of course(I took 8 months longer than most because of the raw dairy, but that was because I was hyper-allergic to it, and it took that long for me to find that out). Most, on the other hand, find it only takes weeks or a couple of months to adjust(if they go 95%+ raw; as a result, it's usually recommended to go 85%+ raw to ensure rapid adaptation to raw.
It's just that the few raw, zero-carbers I've come across tend to mention still having issues 2-3 years after doing zero-carb. Well we'll see how things turn out in 10 years time.
Re doing zc:- I think it's very important to try out all the various kinds of diet first, whether raw vegan or zero-carb or whatever. So often as not, I've found that gurus from the various different disciplines all have something useful to say about a subject, and it's also true that no 1 guru(or human being, for that matter) is 100% infallible, so it pays to do as much experimentation on one's own as possible.
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Re fruit:- yes, it does spoil easily. However, that particularly applies to nonorganic fruit. I generally find that the higher the quality of the fruit, the longer it lasts. I've slowly come round to the whole notion of brix-values and am always looking around for higher-quality raw animal/raw plant-foods(I don't really trust the organic label, after various experiences).
What experiences did you have that made you distrust the organic label? Do you mostly buy locally grown or wild plant foods now?
Did you buy a "brix" meter and do you test the fruit/veggie juices yourself for sucrose (mineral) content? Or do you just judge by the taste (sweetness only?) How reliable are these tests since most hybrid plants are bred to have higher levels of sugars..? oh and meat can actually have a brix index? How do you even test that?
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Well, I hate to say this, but raw dairy is an effective weight-gainer for RVAFers(whether for 100% RVAFers or whatever).
Dairy is one of the foods that has the worst effects on me, unfortunately--including raw.
I've also found that if I add sufficient amounts of raw carbs that my weight goes up(and I'm 98-99% raw).
I was eating more carbs than most Paleos in an effort to gain weight, but my health was declining as a result. So I cut back on the carbs and am doing much better, but I still have the issue of being overly thin. I've been hoping that increasing the fats and lifting weights might help, and I have put on a few pounds, but I'm hoping to add more. I see guys like the Primal diet guy who was thinner than me, went Primal and quickly added a lot of muscle and fat as a result (I'm more interested in adding muscle), and I wonder if I hit a diet right if I might get that sort of result too, or if the before-and-after success photo people just have genes with more muscle growth potential.
1 or 2 partial-rawists have claimed that cooked-starches like potatoes were useful for weight-gain, though, understandably, I don't recommend that. Most RVAFers were, for obvious reasons given our current society, extremely obese prior to taking up RVAF diets, so they don't mind the usual weight-loss that comes with it.
I was flabby and had a beer belly (from carbs, not beer) before going Paleo, though not hugely obese and I still had thin limbs, but now people nag me because they think I look too thin (though I'm actually back to the way I was in my 20's). It's ironic that some of the people who complain to me about being fat refuse to eat like I do because I look too thin. Somehow they don't see the contradiction.
[/quote]Re fruit:- yes, it does spoil easily. However, that particularly applies to nonorganic fruit. I generally find that the higher the quality of the fruit, the longer it lasts. I've slowly come round to the whole notion of brix-values and am always looking around for higher-quality raw animal/raw plant-foods(I don't really trust the organic label, after various experiences).[/quote]
I eat mostly organic, but have been thinking about going all-organic. I would prefer not to have to give up pemmican and jerky for the multiple reasons I mentioned, but if it turns out they're harming me I'll definitely reconsider that.
Given that natural selection became nonexistent sometime in the Palaeolithic(c.200,000 years ago?), it's unlikely that all segments of the human population would equally be resistant or adaptive to specific types of foods.Plus, from what I understand, epigenetics doesn't involve any real alteration of DNA, just different gene-expression:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
That was my point as well and if I gave a different impression it was unintentional.
I'm saying that adaptation to a healthy (raw)food should really take only a few months(barring serious digestion-related issues like a seriously damaged liver/pancreas etc.)
Most of the people I've seen who said it took months to adapt to zero carb or all raw did have very serious digestion-related issues, but I'm pretty new to this forum.
I can only base this on mine and others experience, of course(I took 8 months longer than most because of the raw dairy, but that was because I was hyper-allergic to it, and it took that long for me to find that out).
I had a similar story. I didn't find out for decades until my doctor had me do a food challenge for dairy and then gluten and I improved both times, and then was tested and found to have very high antibodies to all dairy products and the components casein, whey and lactose (as well as gluten, wheat and many other grains). As an infant I also had mild digestive reactions to dairy fats, but was thought to have "grown out of it." The emphasis was always on trying to get kids like me to be able to eat the bad foods, with treatments like allergy shots. Eliminating dairy was never considered as an option. The same is true in most cases today. Instead of adapting diets to fit people's needs, they try to adapt people to the standard American diet.
It's just that the few raw, zero-carbers I've come across tend to mention still having issues 2-3 years after doing zero-carb. Well we'll see how things turn out in 10 years time.
I wonder if some of them are eating dairy. I noticed that a number of the low Paleos, low carbers and rawists who don't cut out dairy continue to have problems but tend to deny any possibility of dairy being the source--even without having tried eliminating it for more than a month or so. I was a real dairy addict myself, so I'm not criticizing, and believe in "each to their own."
Re doing zc:- I think it's very important to try out all the various kinds of diet first, whether raw vegan or zero-carb or whatever. So often as not, I've found that gurus from the various different disciplines all have something useful to say about a subject, and it's also true that no 1 guru(or human being, for that matter) is 100% infallible, so it pays to do as much experimentation on one's own as possible.
That's pretty much my view as well, though I try to be careful when experimenting that I don't do serious damage to myself.
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What experiences did you have that made you distrust the organic label? Do you mostly buy locally grown or wild plant foods now?
Did you buy a "brix" meter and do you test the fruit/veggie juices yourself for sucrose (mineral) content? Or do you just judge by the taste (sweetness only?) How reliable are these tests since most hybrid plants are bred to have higher levels of sugars..? oh and meat can actually have a brix index? How do you even test that?
I haven't got round to actually buying a brix-meter as yet. I just go by taste, for now. You'd have to ask cherimoya_kid on this forum re more info re brix. AFAIK, it's only plants that can be tested(but one could test the plants the herbivores feed on and thus estimate the relative quality of the meats.
IMO, brix is more useful for those who either have a multitude of reasonably cheap, high-quality sources available or who own their own farms.
Re negative experiences re organic:- At the start of this diet, I would just arbitrarily buy my raw foods from any source that was organic/grassfed etc, often from large agricombines and the like(eg:- buying organic, free-range eggs from the supermarket). However, I then quickly got hold of cheaper sources of wild game such as wild hare carcasses etc., and found that the taste of the latter was far superior to any of the standard organic fare. I also had some other experiences where I found small-time farmers who couldn't afford to convert officially to organic status, and whose meat was way better than many of the bigger farms I visited. A good example is a very nice nonorganic "cavalheria" I know in Italy which sells raw 100% grassfed horsemeat which, IMO, has a far better taste/nutrient-profile than any organic/grassfed meats I've ever had in the UK. Yet that horsemeat is only a quarter or a third of the price of organic/grassfed meats in the UK.
Re wild plant-foods:- Trouble is I live in a city and allotments are very difficult to come by. I do pick on wild fruit such as blackberries in Hampstead heath or wild samphire on Italian beaches and the like but I'm forced to buy organic fruit from either local market-stalls or supermarkets. I dislike buying organic blueberries from new zealand, say, but, unfortunately, I live in an overindustrialised country which despises farming so there's not much local farming left.
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Hi Tyler,
I am interested in this "Blue Ice" fermented cod liver oil. Can you get it in England or is it only possible to order it from America?
If so, I might have to try and find a way in the EU...
Nicola
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Hi Tyler,
I am interested in this "Blue Ice" fermented cod liver oil. Can you get it in England or is it only possible to order it from America?
If so, I might have to try and find a way in the EU...
Nicola
I get it from a shop which has a website(something like red23.co.uk ?)
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Today I had a truly massive amount of saltmarsh-fed lamb and a couple of pieces of watermelon.
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Meat cannot (that I know of) be successfully brixed. I have read Rex Harrill talk about it on the Brix yahoo group that he runs. He says it's not realistic, but he says he has heard of people who claim to have done it. I don't bother. I believe in going by taste/texture/common sense/knowing your source when it comes to meat.
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I get it from a shop which has a website(something like red23.co.uk ?)
Nicola,
Elainie posted on GI2MR that she uses Blue Ice cod liver oil. This is here profile here, to contact her. http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/?action=profile;u=234 (http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/?action=profile;u=234). She's in the US though, so I don't know, Tyler's source might be more convenient to you.
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Today I bought a large wad of raw beef suet(grassfed) as well as some raw quail eggs(far tastier than chicken- or duck- eggs). Also got some free-range turkey-breast fillets and plenty of raw lamb(mutton being now out of season) some liver/kidney/heart(all lamb) and 2 wild hare carcasses. In a few weeks I'll be in Italy where I can finally spend time eating the delicious raw grassfed horsemeat over there.Oh, and got myself 20 extra-large oysters and 2 live crab and 1 live lobster to be frozen and eaten(I'm not scoffing all these foods in one, they should last me a couple of weeks).
*Cheated with a couple of bottles of sulphite-free cider. It's so unusual to find sulphite-free cider or wine that I thought I should take advantage at this time. Otherwise I avoid cider or wine completely.
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Today I bought a large wad of raw beef suet(grassfed)
Tyler, what colour is your grassfed beef suet? The muscle fat I get is yellow but my suet seems to be white with a little red from the blood.
Nicola
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Tyler, what colour is your grassfed beef suet? The muscle fat I get is yellow but my suet seems to be white with a little red from the blood.
Nicola
It's pure white. I have only rarely had yellowish-white suet in the past. Lex and Gary seem to be of the opinion that one can only truly determine grassfed status of suet by rendering it and seeing if it turns yellow or not - haven't done so yet as I don't have the equipment.
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2 anomalies:-
I've noticed how my irises have been lightening slowly over the years. The difference was quite noticeable in the first 3 years but then more or less stopped. Then, after taking those dr ron adrenal/thyroid supplements, it seems to have increased.
Re iris-colour change:- My irises were so dark as to be almost coal-black at the start of going for RAF diets. They improved slightly with raw meats being eaten, but quickly became worse when I included raw dairy in the diet. Now they're sort of a light green/grey/brown.
It's interesting as many RVAFers have reported a lightening of their irises after years of eating raw animal foods. Whites seem to get grey/green or blue eyes while nonwhites get amber-coloured eyes, last I checked.
Another anomaly:- After I went rawpalaeo, I started noticing that my back would stiffen if I spent too much time in bed. That is, I'd have no problems if I slept 6-7 hours and got up as became awake, but if I ever try to do a lie-in after waking(even 15 minutes), then my back stiffens up and it becomes uncomfortable to stay in bed for longer. Now, the stiffness is easily got rid of via a hot bath for 5 minutes, but I'm curious re this as I didn't have it before. Now,sleeping in beds is hardly palaeo and it may be that as my muscles started to harden up after going for RVAF diets, that somehow this discomfort arose. I have no idea. But it is curious that I don't get the stiffness from sleeping just from staying awake but lying in bed after waking.
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http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282)
Dunno if you've seen this...I can't spend a whole night in them yet, but find them good for having a rest.
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http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282)
Dunno if you've seen this...I can't spend a whole night in them yet, but find them good for having a rest.
Interesting. I've always thought that pillows were a bad idea, but it's so difficult to kick the habit.
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Interesting. I've always thought that pillows were a bad idea, but it's so difficult to kick the habit.
I've been sleeping on the floor with a pillow at my new house. I can get comfy laying on my arms but eventually the circulation gets cut off so I don't like to do it.
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I never liked pillows - for years I have been sleeping on this
http://www.elsaint.com/_de/produktseiten/knackpunkt.html
and have had my atlas corrected
http://www.atlasprofilax.ch/eng/index.php
Nicola
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http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119282)
Dunno if you've seen this...I can't spend a whole night in them yet, but find them good for having a rest.
Thanks much! I've been keeping my eyes open for biologically appropriate sleeping/sitting/etc. stuff for months and hadn't seen anything on sleeping/pillows yet.
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It may be worth doing a sticky topic for palaeo lifestyles involving things like dealing with hygiene, proper posture/sleeping position etc.
By the way, I think I ought to mention a quirk of mine:- I often, especially in summer, put my mineral-water bottles in the freezer, then take them out after they've completely frozen and start drinking once the ice starts melting. This is partly for taste reasons and because I've always noticed just how cold rivers/lakes are, even in summer in Europe, and because when I used to just put ice-cubes in my glasses of water during the Italian summer, I would invariably find that the ice-cubes melted too fast for my liking.
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May have forgotten to mention other things I do:-
1) I often carry a magnet hanging from my neck. I think I get some slight effect from it but it's probably just placebo. My view is that magnets don't do any harm even if they may or may not do me some good.
2) I've been experimenting off and on with the Bates Method and have experienced only very minor but definite results(what Bates Teachers call "flashes")
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May have forgotten to mention other things I do:-
1) I often carry a magnet hanging from my neck. I think I get some slight effect from it but it's probably just placebo. My view is that magnets don't do any harm even if they may or may not do me some good.
Much experience with specially made therapeutic magnets confirms the claim of the seller that it tends to alkalize the blood.
I use my neodymium magnet for those bug bites that won't stop itching - all biological poisons are acidic; it neutralizes in 30 minutes.
William
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2) I've been experimenting off and on with the Bates Method and have experienced only very minor but definite results(what Bates Teachers call "flashes")
I've been experimenting with the Bates Method for several years and when I've done it regularly every day - usually palming and sunning - I've experienced definite results, including small improvement of eyesight
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I've just found out that dr ron's now refuses to ship their products to the UK as UK customs apparently have seized several shipments(and destroyed them). This annoys me greatly as I'll have to use another country to get around this issue.
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I have 4 grass-fed bison thyroids coming later this week. I'll think of you when I eat them. >D LOL
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Well, I'm off to Italy in July so there are unlikely to be any posts here for some time.
What I usually eat in Italy(all raw):- lots and lots of wonderfully-tasting grassfed horsemeat, ox tongue(at least partially grainfed, unfortunately), swordfish, multiple types of fruit(from my own garden!), samphire, grassfed beef suet(taken with me from the UK), tuna(hate taste but options are limited), grassfed organic chicken eggs(very substandard being fed on grains) - as for the rest we'll see, but it'll be mostly raw horsemeat and fruit from my garden.
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Just checked my allexperts.com entry. It seems I'm now the top guy in the special diets section with well over 400 questions with various other carb or raw plant experts all registering 80-odd questions or much less. The few other long-timers have long since left that section to do other things. Anyway, I just find it amusing that such an obscure field as raw meat diets now gets more prominence in a website as public as allexperts.com , within the field of unusual diets, than any other kind of diet, whether raw vegan , low carb or otherwise.
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Before I left for Italy I made the mistake of arguing with some pro-cooked-food advocates on the palaeodiet list. Of course, I should have realised that it was a cooked palaeo list but naturally I blindly went ahead with comments re the multitude of
studies damning cooked meats being quite reasonable. I was rather amused by the attacks on me for being "religious" while they just (religiously)
ignored the evidence I gave and just gave idiotic largely unsubstantiated comments about the supposed harm of carbs and pufas being the "real reason" for the harm done by cooked meats. I decided to stop with the discussion as I was leaving for Italy and was, after all, arguing on a largely non-raw list. But it was amusing nevertheless to come across such stupid, obviously untrue claims such as that the population in the palaeolithic was greater than in the Neolithic era etc.
What I find so amusing about the apologists for cooked low-carb/ cooked zero-diets is that their gurus are either decrepit-looking for their age(eg:- barry groves) or dead(dr atkins died ignominiously of a heart-attack in recent years after claiming that cooked low carb protected the heart, Stefansson died of a stroke at 83, the WAPF-oriented stephen byrnes died at the tender age of 41 etc.) They really have an uphill struggle to prove their point.
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Just checked my allexperts.com entry. It seems I'm now the top guy in the special diets section with well over 400 questions with various other carb or raw plant experts all registering 80-odd questions or much less. The few other long-timers have long since left that section to do other things. Anyway, I just find it amusing that such an obscure field as raw meat diets now gets more prominence in a website as public as allexperts.com , within the field of unusual diets, than any other kind of diet, whether raw vegan , low carb or otherwise.
People are sick.
They are looking for solutions.
Raw Paleo helps a lot.
You are doing the world a big favor.
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Stefansson was only zero carb for 10 years and 83 ain't that bad. Charles looks good but he's only real problem was weight which is a minor condition.
Looks are not a great measure of someones diet...I think someones mothers/fathers/grandparents diet is equally if not more important than what you start eating once your allowed to make your own choices.
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Before I left for Italy I made the mistake of arguing with some pro-cooked-food advocates on the palaeodiet list. Of course, I should have realised that it was a cooked palaeo list but naturally I blindly went ahead with comments re the multitude of
studies damning cooked meats being quite reasonable. I was rather amused by the attacks on me for being "religious" while they just (religiously)
ignored the evidence I gave and just gave idiotic largely unsubstantiated comments about the supposed harm of carbs and pufas be3ing the "real reason" for the harm done by cooked meats. I decided to stop with the discussion as I was leaving for Italy and was, after all, arguing on a largely non-raw list.
I see you've been taking notes from my forays on hatrack.com. LOL
"Forge ahead! There's only 7 dozen of them! Surely I can argue them into silence!" LOL
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I doubt their claims were unsubstantiated since every study (it probably is almost 100% of them...really) that puts people on cooked low carb diets, i.e. removing carbs improves the person's health. Uncontrolled observational studies full of enormous variables are all that exist (anything else?) against cooked meat being the biggest problem in peoples diets. Raw is a universal improvement, but the macro composition is of course important.
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Looks are not a great measure of someones diet...I think someones mothers/fathers/grandparents diet is equally if not more important than what you start eating once your allowed to make your own choices.
I think looks are important and can measure people's diets, but within reason. Though better than high carb crap, those gurus don't follow the best diet (cooking, grain-fed) so it will show.
Another thing is that much of looks are developed in youth and is irreversible even by changing diet. such as bone structure, nose and ear shape and perhaps some gene expression related to aging.
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I doubt their claims were unsubstantiated since every study (it probably is almost 100% of them...really) that puts people on cooked low carb diets, i.e. removing carbs improves the person's health. Uncontrolled observational studies full of enormous variables are all that exist (anything else?) against cooked meat being the biggest problem in peoples diets. Raw is a universal improvement, but the macro composition is of course important.
Unfortunately, those studies damning the consumption of cooked meat are not all just uncontrolled mass observation studies.A number of such studies focus on the fact that cooked meat has a much higher (heat-created) toxin load than cooked carbs.
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I think looks are important and can measure people's diets, but within reason. Though better than high carb crap, those gurus don't follow the best diet (cooking, grain-fed) so it will show.
Another thing is that much of looks are developed in youth and is irreversible even by changing diet. such as bone structure, nose and ear shape and perhaps some gene expression related to aging.
I think aspects of looks like skin, fingernails and eyes show health very well. Also relative lean to fat body mass, the tone of your muscles, stuff like that.
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Well I'm back from abroad but still relaxing(sort of). I ate a ton of fruit(and even salad) along with the usual horsemeat as the local raw seafood there is ridiculously expensive(38 euros for a kilo of swordfish for example at the fish-market, 58 euros for a kilo of prawns). I had some raw limpets from the shore as well plus grapes and lemons and (rather bitter) mandarine/clementine varieties.
I don't do badly on large numbers of fruit (or even salad) so don't mind binging on them when I'm surrounded by other RAFers, though I admit that much of the produce(other than what's found in my garden) is nowhere near as good as organic fruit.
*I've been thinking again how my place in Italy is the perfect meetup for European RAFers. It's right next to the french riviera being only an hour's drive from Nice, there's 20 beds(maybe 22) and a huge garden and access to the beach. A perfect location. Well, I suppose I'd have to wait until the European RAF contingent becomes large enough.
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You can host the first raw paleo bed and breakfast inn. ;D
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That place sounds beautiful. I would consider traveling there if I had the means when you set up a meetup.
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The picture in my avatar is of the garden below the italian villa.
There are of course multiple catches. The place is time-shared , a full month at a time shared between 3 families, so I only get the month of august every 3 years(such as next year, this year I got July) and I assume that august is what most people would prefer. (Actually, I find Augusts there to be far too hot but anyway.....
Other catches involve people probably having to bring some food with them or having to share the hire of a car to get to Menton markets(No market for grassfed beef in those areas, it's either (expensive) seafood or horsemeat, really. I think the horsemeat is OK as the taste is far better than the partially grainfed beef, but I can't guarantee they haven't been fed some oats or whatever.
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That place sounds beautiful. I would consider traveling there if I had the means when you set up a meetup.
Yes, it's very pretty and very well situated re Monte Carlo /Nice or the Italian Ligurian mountains or whatever. To be honest, though, it may take a decade before any such gathering can take place as only a fraction of potential members , given the relative lack of European RAFers right now so you'll have better luck trying an American meetup first(I know there's numerous primal potlucks going on in the USA at any time).
I only mention my villa because it's only an hour's drive from Nice airport(2 hours by bus/train) and flights to Nice are many and usually very cheap from most places in Europe. Plus, so many people in Europe visit the area anyway on summer holidays that it's a convenient place to be for a time.
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Paleo potlucks in the US? Maybe on the West Coast. Have you heard of any on the East Coast? I'd love to find one within a few hours drive of me.
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I learned quite a lot while reading this interesting thread. Thanks Tyler and others ! The following comments come to my mind.
Plus, a lot of people do very badly on zero-carb, raw or otherwise, judging from reports of RPDers. I'm not the only one. Though, I'll grant that the overwhelming majority of people do better on raw,low-carb(<35%) than raw, high-carb(like Instincto)(80%+ raw plant-foods).
There’s no such thing as percentage of carbs – protein – animal food – plant food in instincto. Everyone is different and of course we also change with time; therefore our % intake of different foodstuff varies over time. Many people eating “instincto” consume a lot of meat, oyster, eggs, fish. Personally it’s almost everyday in quite big quantities. When we like some particular food we may eat a staggering amount of it in a single meal or during several consecutive meals – by the way just like wild animals. Since our choice of food is instinctive, it may well be 100 % RAF for a while, or on the opposite100 % plants for a few days. That’s the way to fulfill our personally specific, transient and ever-changing body needs.
As regards the cooked-food-issue, I've heard claims that detox can be stopped if one readds enough cooked-foods(c.50% of diet?) - the Aajonus interpretation of that would be that that large an amount of cooked-foods overwhelms the body thus diverting the toxins into the fat-cells instead of them being expelled.
Interesting. It's at least plausible. It might be similar to how I didn't notice that gluten was doing a number on me because I was eating it so regularly that my body was constantly overwhelmed, resulting in a very gradual increase in chronic symptoms rather than a violent detox- or allergic-type reaction. It was only when I stopped eating gluten completely for over 3 weeks that my systems calmed down enough that a gluten challenge resulted in severe symptoms.
Yes, that’s almost exactly what has been verified in instincto experiments and theorized by GC Burger – in late 60s or perhaps early 70s ! ;)
I'm saying that adaptation to a healthy (raw)food should really take only a few months(barring serious digestion-related issues like a seriously damaged liver/pancreas etc.) I can only base this on mine and others experience, of course(I took 8 months longer than most because of the raw dairy, but that was because I was hyper-allergic to it, and it took that long for me to find that out). Most, on the other hand, find it only takes weeks or a couple of months to adjust(if they go 95%+ raw; as a result, it's usually recommended to go 85%+ raw to ensure rapid adaptation to raw.
We should recognize two distinct phenomenon : genetic adaptation and habituation. There’s no delay in genetic adaptation to paleo raw food: adaptation has been thoroughly perfected during millions of years of evolution and is still there in the genes of each of us. Thus we can jump to 100 % raw paleo food straight away if we want. That’s what I did 22 years ago and never regretted.
Habituation to grain, dairy and cooked food is why most people feel OK for years with a SAD (what about Standard European Diet ? ;)). Grain, dairy and cooked food are kind of drugs : by eating it 3 or more times a day results in the body tolerating it and avoiding any defense reactions since it would be permanent and thus impracticable.
After a few days (normally about a week) of instinctive paleo nutrition, the body gets out of tolerance and apparently starts to eliminate the garbage previously introduced with cooked food, grain and dairy. This “detox” may be somewhat uncomfortable for a while but it’s been found out that the best way to control it is to stick to 100 % instinctive raw paleo food: any small intake of cooked food is bound to exacerbate the detox.
Cheers
Francois
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There’s no such thing as percentage of carbs – protein – animal food – plant food in instincto. Everyone is different and of course we also change with time; therefore our % intake of different foodstuff varies over time. Many people eating “instincto” consume a lot of meat, oyster, eggs, fish. Personally it’s almost everyday in quite big quantities. When we like some particular food we may eat a staggering amount of it in a single meal or during several consecutive meals – by the way just like wild animals. Since our choice of food is instinctive, it may well be 100 % RAF for a while, or on the opposite100 % plants for a few days. That’s the way to fulfill our personally specific, transient and ever-changing body needs.
Nice clear definition of instincto. Maybe I'm on raw paleo but I respect my body instincts and cravings. Lately I've been craving a lot more meat and more fat. Especially in the mornings instead of my usual fruit.
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Paleo potlucks in the US? Maybe on the West Coast. Have you heard of any on the East Coast? I'd love to find one within a few hours drive of me.
I've heard of New York Primal Potlucks being held from time to time. The key is to subscribe to aajonus's e-mails , go to one of his workshops when they appear near your State, and then ask around to find those holding regular primal potlucks in their local areas.
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I don't do badly on large numbers of fruit (or even salad) so don't mind binging on them when I'm surrounded by other RAFers, though I admit that much of the produce(other than what's found in my garden) is nowhere near as good as organic fruit.
What do you mean by doing well on binging fruit and salad? If you eat one meal a day of meat and fat normally (and perhaps a little fruit) and binging on fruit and salad must have some affect on the system that is different to meat and fat. If you compare the two what feels better - gas, bloat, poo, urine, hunger, energy, mental health, sleep...
I don't like the word binging - the body and mind have to deal with it and binging does not result in healthy digestion!
Nicola
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Like I said, when I do binge on fruit etc., I don't experience the kind of issues you refer to. Perhaps if I went 100% fruitarian it might be different, but eating even 50% fruit or whatever doesn't harm me.
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I came across yet more studies focusing on the benefits of Intermittent Fasting. One of the claims re AGEs and other heat-created toxins is that the levels thereof in the body can be reduced considerably via eating less/fasting. I begin to wonder if some(not all) of the benefits of Intermittent Fasting/caloric restriction may be mainly due, simply, to reducing the intake of cooked-foods rather than reducing intake of all foods, cooked or raw. That said, I still think IF has its uses, but perhaps more so for cooked-dieters.
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I came across yet more studies focusing on the benefits of Intermittent Fasting. One of the claims re AGEs and other heat-created toxins is that the levels thereof in the body can be reduced considerably via eating less/fasting. I begin to wonder if some(not all) of the benefits of Intermittent Fasting/caloric restriction may be mainly due, simply, to reducing the intake of cooked-foods rather than reducing intake of all foods, cooked or raw. That said, I still think IF has its uses, but perhaps more so for cooked-dieters.
That's a logical way of putting it. Maybe this is why Aajonus is not a fasting fan.
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Yes, that’s exactly the inference GC Burger came to, some 40 years ago ! Only instinctive fasting may be helpful.
Cheers
Francois
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Francois, what texts or people contributed to GC Burger's insights and knowledge? I'm guessing that Tanchou was one. France has been a good incubator of revolutionaries with insights into the diet - health - chronic disease connection.
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Tanchou ? I had never heard anything about that name before and I think GC Burger neither. It is neither cited in his book http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/7627/ggindex.html nor in its bibliography and I never heard him refer verbally to this Stanislaw Tanchou about which I found that now by a Google search :
http://www.newtreatments.org/cancer
Linear relation of cancer and grain consumption
This article shows clearly that there is a linear relation between grain consumption and cancer incidence. Even in 1843 this was already known:
it points out that Stanislaw Tanchou "....gave the first formula for predicting cancer risk. It was based on grain consumption and was found to accurately calculate cancer rates in major European cities. The more grain consumed, the greater the rate of cancer." Tanchou's paper was delivered to the Paris Medical Society in 1843. He also postulated that cancer would likewise never be found in hunter-gatherer populations. This began a search among the populations of hunter-gatherers known to missionary doctors and explorers. This search continued until WWII when the last wild humans were "civilized" in the Arctic and Australia. No cases of cancer were ever found within these populations, although after they adopted the diet of civilization, it became common.
This is truly amazing: We've known for more than 150 years that grains are killing us and what is it we're eating more and more: Grains and refined carbohydrates. Just one more reason to adopt a healthier diet, like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Low-Carb diet or Paleolithic Diet.
By the way, the bibliography in English at the page http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/7627/ggbibliogr.html is not the same than that in the French version of the printed book “Manger Vrai”. (I think the English book freely available on the web is a pirate translation.)
GC Burger knew about Weston A. Price “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”, I know because we talked about it, but not about Stanislaw Tanchou. I’ll ask GCB about that. Thanks for the info.
Cheers
Francois
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I always thought it was 'interesting' that his wife, I think Nicole, died of cancer. In the end I heard she turned to eating bread for some reason. I had know her from the several trips I made to their center. There always seemed to be such a restless quality about her.
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I've noticed, interestingly, that it's becoming more dangerous for me to eat cooked foods. Well, not dangerous but inconvenient as it makes me vomit. Yesterday, I had some sushi. Normally, in restaurants, this would never once be a problem, but , in this case, I think I ate too much in one go and the sushi was from a sushi-specialist shop. Might have something to do with chemicals added but I think the real reason was that cooked food stays much longer before passing through my digestive system so that if I eat too much of it, I will vomit much of it up.
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Cooked bacon is something that I would eat as a compromise food at other peoples' houses and restaurants, but it is making me increasingly nauseaous. I think it's mainly the salt but I wonder if it's the cooking too.
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Well, the Daily Telegraph came up with yet another study damning the consumption of cooked-meats claiming a reduction in lifespan therefrom. I know people tend to cite conspiracy theories but when there are so many such studies, it becomes clear that there is something to the myriad conclusions. It's no coincidence, IMO, that the diseases routinely linked to increased cooked-meat-consumption, such as coronary heart disease etc., are also the ones directly linked to the levels of AGEs(mostly heat-created toxins) in the body. In other words, while trans-fats and (refined) sugars are pretty bad, cooked-meats(and pasteurised dairy) come a close 2nd in terms of lifespan-reducing foods. That's not to say that fruit and veg(the most commonly cited healthy lifespan-increasing foods) are necessarily ultra-healthy, either, given my Fruitarian experience ages ago(they aren't complete foods, after all).But the fact that fruit is nearly always eaten raw, with vegetables usually only being lightly steamed(and with far fewer AGEs being produced by cooking plant-foods , by comparison, anyway) means people with high levels of plant-foods in their diet are usually consuming far lower levels of heat-created toxins than other types of people such as cooked-low-carbers, thus resulting in a longer, healthier lifespan.
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Well, the Daily Telegraph came up with yet another study damning the consumption of cooked-meats claiming a reduction in lifespan therefrom. I know people tend to cite conspiracy theories but when there are so many such studies, it becomes clear that there is something to the myriad conclusions. It's no coincidence, IMO, that the diseases routinely linked to increased cooked-meat-consumption, such as coronary heart disease etc., are also the ones directly linked to the levels of AGEs(mostly heat-created toxins) in the body. In other words, while trans-fats and (refined) sugars are pretty bad, cooked-meats(and pasteurised dairy) come a close 2nd in terms of lifespan-reducing foods. That's not to say that fruit and veg(the most commonly cited healthy lifespan-increasing foods) are necessarily ultra-healthy, either, given my Fruitarian experience ages ago(they aren't complete foods, after all).But the fact that fruit is nearly always eaten raw, with vegetables usually only being lightly steamed(and with far fewer AGEs being produced by cooking plant-foods , by comparison, anyway) means people with high levels of plant-foods in their diet are usually consuming far lower levels of heat-created toxins than other types of people such as cooked-low-carbers, thus resulting in a longer, healthier lifespan.
The big cooked meat eaters tend to also eat a lot of refine carbs, sugar, rancid vegetable oils, industrial food, pasteurized dairie, soda, etc.
I don't know if one can conclude anything about such studies if the entire diet (including cooking methods) is not taken into account.
There is no doubt that AGEs from cooked-meat are very dangerous, but meat is a paleo-food that we are adapted to, contrary to the junk food that people commonly eat with it. Some people on a lightly cooked meat diet seem to thrive.
Only a study on a cooked-meat only diet can be conclusive!
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The trouble with this notion is that study after study proves that the higher the (cooked-) meat-intake, the worse the health-problems are ! In other words, the incidence of refined sugars, trans-fats etc. is accounted for !
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Just because someone is eating more cooked meat does not mean they are eating less other stuff. They could just be eating more food, cooked food and junk food, in general, and I would assume they would have poorer health because of it.
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Just because someone is eating more cooked meat does not mean they are eating less other stuff. They could just be eating more food, cooked food and junk food, in general, and I would assume they would have poorer health because of it.
Well, if study after study shows that the higher the percentage of cooked meat in the diet, the higher the mortality-rate is, then, logically whatever's left out of a 100% total must be getting smaller, by comparison, as a percentage - and therefore is, increasingly, less likely to be a factor behind the mortality stakes, with increasing meat-consumption being the more likely factor. Plus, there's the issue of appetite - people eating lots of refined carbs generally have a much bigger appetite than those eating mainly (cooked) meats, because there's no "stop" feeling with refined carbs, so, those on junk-food diets involving lots of refined carbs and not much meat would eat far more than the mainly-meat-eaters.
I do find that a lot of WAPFers have real problems trying desperately to explain away the deleterious ill-health caused by (lightly-cooked) meat diets. They always cite things like trans-fats or refined sugars, but these are only a very tiny component of a (reasonably healthy) cooked diet by comparison to cooked meats, say, so are far less likely to be the cause behind the rising mortality than increasing cooked meat in the diet.
As regards lightly-cooked meat diets, I have to say that I have not been too impressed by the gurus of those diets. The Bear had(still has?) throat cancer, Stephen Byrnes died at 41, Dr Atkins died of coronary heart disease(which is a condition brought on by heat-created toxins such as AGEs), and Stefansson died of a stroke(also linked to AGEs)at the age of 82.
I quite agree that simply by following a lightly-cooked-meat-based diet and avoiding non-Palaeo foods like grains,legumes or dairy, one can avoid a certain range of conditions, but that still leaves a whole range of other conditions such as coronary heart disease etc. etc., which are directly linked to cooked-meat-consumption.
Lastly, my own experience showed me that merely lightly-cooking my meats and eating only wild or grassfed(this was well before going rawpalaeo) did nothing for my own previous conditions(just made things worse, if anything).
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In the studies you refer to, does cooked meat include charcuterie (cooked pork meat?), saucisse (sausage?), pâté, industrial processed meat, etc. ?
These heavily processed food, not only contain a very high AGEs content, but also several kind of chemicals, and have nearly no nutritional value.
Does these studies take into account the way the meat is cooked ? No comparison between a rare steak and a BBQ steak...
All this could explain easily the higher mortality-rate in cooked meat eaters.
re appetite : lean meat has no more "stop" than refined carbs. It is the fat in the meat that is satiating. The mainly-meat-eaters eat lean meat, like the majority. They also eat lots of carbs, otherwise they would get sick (rabbit starvation). Thus, they probably have the same appetite than mainly refined carbs eaters. Traditional dishes always include carbs and meat. Carbs or meat are never eaten alone.
We don't know enough about the life and personal history of the gurus you cited to conclude anything. Even the perfect diet won't delete damages done by decades of junk food and unhealthy WOL.
The fact remains that some (not too sick) people can thrive on a lightly cooked fresh meat, like the ones on the ZC forum.
BTW, I believe it is much better to eat lighly cooked meat than to be a raw vegetarian! (at least for me)
Well, if study after study shows that the higher the percentage of cooked meat in the diet, the higher the mortality-rate is, then, logically whatever's left out of a 100% total must be getting smaller, by comparison, as a percentage - and therefore is, increasingly, less likely to be a factor behind the mortality stakes, with increasing meat-consumption being the more likely factor. Plus, there's the issue of appetite - people eating lots of refined carbs generally have a much bigger appetite than those eating mainly (cooked) meats, because there's no "stop" feeling with refined carbs, so, those on junk-food diets involving lots of refined carbs and not much meat would eat far more than the mainly-meat-eaters.
I do find that a lot of WAPFers have real problems trying desperately to explain away the deleterious ill-health caused by (lightly-cooked) meat diets. They always cite things like trans-fats or refined sugars, but these are only a very tiny component of a (reasonably healthy) cooked diet by comparison to cooked meats, say, so are far less likely to be the cause behind the rising mortality than increasing cooked meat in the diet.
As regards lightly-cooked meat diets, I have to say that I have not been too impressed by the gurus of those diets. The Bear had(still has?) throat cancer, Stephen Byrnes died at 41, Dr Atkins died of coronary heart disease(which is a condition brought on by heat-created toxins such as AGEs), and Stefansson died of a stroke(also linked to AGEs)at the age of 82.
I quite agree that simply by following a lightly-cooked-meat-based diet and avoiding non-Palaeo foods like grains,legumes or dairy, one can avoid a certain range of conditions, but that still leaves a whole range of other conditions such as coronary heart disease etc. etc., which are directly linked to cooked-meat-consumption.
Lastly, my own experience showed me that merely lightly-cooking my meats and eating only wild or grassfed(this was well before going rawpalaeo) did nothing for my own previous conditions(just made things worse, if anything).
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My own experience is that I also do better on lightly cooked meats than on plant foods, with raw meats being even more optimal.
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I don't know Tyler, you could have 50% of your diet be meat but be eating 4000 calories a day, or you could have 70% of your diet be meat and be eating 2000 calories a day. Or any number of scenarios. I would not take any number of modern "science" research to be conclusive evidence of anything. There's many factors, such as the average person concerned with health nowadays leans towards vegetarianism, and they also probably exercise more and smoke less etc than the average person. That alone would skew vegetarians, or people who eat very little meat, towards the healthy side of things. There has never been a respectable study done putting a wide swath of people on specific diets and observing greatly the health changes. All the studies ever done have made sweeping assumptions about diet and other environmental factors and really don't control for anything at all except the one variable they're trying to push an agenda forward on. I'm sure you can find just as many studies that "prove" that a certain drug makes people healthier.
Not that research is useless, just that in light of personal experience and the experience of anyone I've ever met in real life it's hard to believe that cooked meat is so bad and cooked veggies so good.
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It's a mistaken assumption that vegetarians are necessarily healthy-minded. For example, they generally eat more highly-processed artificial meat-substitutes like tofu than meat-eaters.
As regards the studies, while some focus on all meats including processed meats, plenty of others separate cooked meats from processed meats as a factor, yet still show a definite increased mortality-risk for (cooked) meats.
Re cooked-meat diets:- Actually, it's been openly admitted by Ray Audette and co, that most people are eating commercially-raised (cooked) meats which are pretty high in fat as grainfed meats are generally much higher in fat-content than grassfed meats. Plus, of course, some people also eat high-fat dairy as well.
*There are dishes containing only carbs or only animal foods(eg:- steak tartare= just raw meat and butter).
Re gurus:- It stands to reason that if a diet is any good that the guru would do it for the rest of his life and gain benefits therefrom rather than dropping dead from heart-attacks etc.. The fact that cooked, low-carb gurus have led such unhealthy lives is a clear indication of the relative ill-health those diets involve. Just take a look at Stefansson's aged face on the Internet and you'll see what I mean re negative results.
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Tyler, what would you estimate is the range of percent carbs, fat and protein in your diet by calories?
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I'm not saying cooked meat is good. My main beef (no pun intended) is with all these studies that people basically can use one way or the other. I was brought up recently in the biological sciences discipline and I am not at all impressed with how research is conducted, how things end up in journals, where the debate starts, etc. The only way you could come close to proving that cooked meat is worse than vegetables would be to have two groups on the same diet save ratio of cooked meat, and do that for years. This will never happen.
And just because vegetarians eat tofu doesn't mean they aren't health minded. They believe that tofu is healthy, and if you're doing something because you believe it's healthy, that is by definition health minded. Someone that eats tofu is several times more likely in my anecdotal research to exercise or not smoke over someone who eats normal SAD foods. I'm not saying tofu is better than a cheese steak or ham sandwich, just that the person eating the tofu believes it is and therefore is doing something specifically for health, whereas someone eating "regular" food is just doing what they like for taste or social pressures or how they were raised.
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I'm not saying cooked meat is good. My main beef (no pun intended) is with all these studies that people basically can use one way or the other. I was brought up recently in the biological sciences discipline and I am not at all impressed with how research is conducted, how things end up in journals, where the debate starts, etc. The only way you could come close to proving that cooked meat is worse than vegetables would be to have two groups on the same diet save ratio of cooked meat, and do that for years. This will never happen.
Well, we will have to agree to disagree on this issue.For my part, I believe in peer reviews and that science moves on by concensus, so that when a huge majority favour 1 angle then that must be right re its results(though I would freely accept that the way they interpreted the results was often wrong(for example the damning of cooked saturated fats now is clearly shown as misguided with heat-created toxins from cooking being identified as the key suspects behind ill-health). By the way, there are some long-term studies which are of interest, such as the ones done on 7th-day adventists(mostly vegetarian vegan-leaning).
And just because vegetarians eat tofu doesn't mean they aren't health minded. They believe that tofu is healthy, and if you're doing something because you believe it's healthy, that is by definition health minded. Someone that eats tofu is several times more likely in my anecdotal research to exercise or not smoke over someone who eats normal SAD foods. I'm not saying tofu is better than a cheese steak or ham sandwich, just that the person eating the tofu believes it is and therefore is doing something specifically for health, whereas someone eating "regular" food is just doing what they like for taste or social pressures or how they were raised.
I was talking about the vast industry of "meat-substitutes"(ie plant-foods artificially highly-processed to look and taste like red meats(I presume there are also vegan substitutes for dairy and eggs?). The point is that such vegans/vegetarians are not eating these foods for health reasons(many admit that these foods are very unhealthy), but eat them so as to prevent themselves from eating real meats, instead, as they consider the consumption of real meats to mean cruelty to animals.
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For my part, I believe in peer reviews and that science moves on by concensus, so that when a huge majority favour 1 angle then that must be right re its results
The propaganda that is presented as science does indeed move by consensus, result is "The Paleolithic Diet" of L. Cordain.
I prefer to believe that science moves by discovery of truth.
(though I would freely accept that the way they interpreted the results was often wrong(for example the damning of cooked satured fats now is clearly shown as misguided with heat-created toxins from cooking being identified as the key suspects behind ill-health).
What??! Are you undamning tallow?
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It's a mistaken assumption that vegetarians are necessarily healthy-minded. For example, they generally eat more highly-processed artificial meat-substitutes like tofu than meat-eaters.
As regards the studies, while some focus on all meats including processed meats, plenty of others separate cooked meats from processed meats as a factor, yet still show a definite increased mortality-risk for (cooked) meats.
Re cooked-meat diets:- Actually, it's been openly admitted by Ray Audette and co, that most people are eating commercially-raised (cooked) meats which are pretty high in fat as grainfed meats are generally much higher in fat-content than grassfed meats. Plus, of course, some people also eat high-fat dairy as well.
The vast majority of people avoid animal fat like the plague, and use vegetable oil instead. They choose lean cut of meat and often prefer "fat free" food.
*There are dishes containing only carbs or only animal foods(eg:- steak tartare= just raw meat and butter).
There is no butter with steak tartare, and it always comes with something (often french fries with salad in France).
Traditional main dishes like pizza, couscous, paella, tagine, pho (vietnam), etc. include meat and carbs. Virualy every country in the world use starchy food as a staple : grain (wheat, corn, rice, etc.), roots, banana, etc. In this world, meat only eaters are on this board or the other (just joking).
Re gurus:- It stands to reason that if a diet is any good that the guru would do it for the rest of his life and gain benefits therefrom rather than dropping dead from heart-attacks etc.. The fact that cooked, low-carb gurus have led such unhealthy lives is a clear indication of the relative ill-health those diets involve. Just take a look at Stefansson's aged face on the Internet and you'll see what I mean re negative results.
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For my part, I believe in peer reviews
Why? It's just as political a task to peer review something as anything else these days. Who do you think the 'peers' are??
The very first consideration of any peer reviewer is what the study will do for his/her own research program. If it helps, they get positive reviews, if it doesn't it gets negative reviews. A close second is personal history which there almost always is. An unbiased peer review does not exist. It only takes one negative critique (justified or not at all justified) to keep a journal from publishing someone's work.
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Re gurus:- It stands to reason that if a diet is any good that the guru would do it for the rest of his life and gain benefits therefrom rather than dropping dead from heart-attacks etc.. The fact that cooked, low-carb gurus have led such unhealthy lives is a clear indication of the relative ill-health those diets involve. Just take a look at Stefansson's aged face on the Internet and you'll see what I mean re negative results.
96-year-old Wolfgang Lutz, the author of "Life without bread", who successfully treated thousends of patients using low-carb diet - http://www.easyvigour.net.nz/diettoxin/plutz.jpg
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What??! Are you undamning tallow?
Of course not, tallow contains large amounts of heat-created toxins, so is extremely unhealthy for you.
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96-year-old Wolfgang Lutz, the author of "Life without bread", who successfully treated thousends of patients using low-carb diet - http://www.easyvigour.net.nz/diettoxin/plutz.jpg
An exception that merely proves the rule.
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Why? It's just as political a task to peer review something as anything else these days. Who do you think the 'peers' are??
The very first consideration of any peer reviewer is what the study will do for his/her own research program. If it helps, they get positive reviews, if it doesn't it gets negative reviews. A close second is personal history which there almost always is. An unbiased peer review does not exist. It only takes one negative critique (justified or not at all justified) to keep a journal from publishing someone's work.
My point is that bias tends to be eliminated(mostly) when paper after paper shows the same thing. Food-science reports in favour of saturated fats are few and far between, with multiple studies damning it. One can argue that the interpretation is wrong, that saturated-fat-heavy foods just happen to contain lots of heat-created toxins from cooking so that it's not the saturated fat per se which is the trouble, but that's about it. The alternative is to go in for the usual pro-low-carb conspiracy theories, which is even less likely.
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The vast majority of people avoid animal fat like the plague, and use vegetable oil instead. They choose lean cut of meat and often prefer "fat free" food.
Most of the people I know who eat SAD-type diet eat fast-food which is very fatty indeed(eg:- fatty bacon in a typical english breakfast,fatty lamb meat in kebabs etc.). It's only the vegetarian-leaning types who prefer cutting off the fat and being hyper-keen on lean.
There is no butter with steak tartare, and it always comes with something (often french fries with salad in France).
Well, every single time I've gone to a restaurant to eat steak tartare(often Hungarian but also other nationalities) I have only ever received a plate of raw, minced meat plus a raw egg on the top with(often but not always) a bit of (pasteurised) butter on the side. Maybe it's a French thing to add the fries.
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Most of the people I know who eat SAD-type diet eat fast-food which is very fatty indeed(eg:- fatty bacon in a typical english breakfast,fatty lamb meat in kebabs etc.). It's only the vegetarian-leaning types who prefer cutting off the fat and being hyper-keen on lean.
Well, every single time I've gone to a restaurant to eat steak tartare(often Hungarian but also other nationalities) I have only ever received a plate of raw, minced meat plus a raw egg on the top with(often but not always) a bit of (pasteurised) butter on the side. Maybe it's a French thing to add the fries.
My point was to say that meat and carbs come together since thousands of years. Eating them separately is "the exception of the rule" like you wrote.
Heavy meat eaters always eat a good proportion of other things.
BTW, can you provide some links about these studies ?
On the french TV, the advertisings for food always show a warning saying that "one should not eat too much sugar, fat and salt". The food that are promoted are always full of these stuffs! Difficult to eat animal products without some unhealthy stuffs.
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Tyler, what would you estimate is the range of percent carbs, fat and protein in your diet by calories?
I'm still interested to know. Don't get me wrong--I'm not claiming there's necessarily a magic ratio, I'm just getting confused by what seem like contradictory points at times and trying to understand where you're coming from and what it is exactly that you're advocating.
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Most of the people I know who eat SAD-type diet eat fast-food which is very fatty indeed(eg:- fatty bacon in a typical english breakfast,fatty lamb meat in kebabs etc.). It's only the vegetarian-leaning types who prefer cutting off the fat and being hyper-keen on lean.
But dude when these people drop the carbs and make their entire diet cooked fat, eaitng heaps of cheese, butter, cooked grain beef, bacon and eggs etc their health improves (relatively). No study exists where people's health has got worse from going low carb on those foods.
The mainstream push that 'red meat' is bad - that's it (if this is considered a consensus then how can you eat raw food? The 'consensus' is that raw meat will kill you immediately). There are hundreds of articles released about the dangers of red meat, however these are NEVER backed by controlled studies only very arbitrary observations. All controlled studies fully support that cooked low carb is superior to any other type of cooked diet.
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But dude when these people drop the carbs and make their entire diet cooked fat, eaitng heaps of cheese, butter, cooked grain beef, bacon and eggs etc their health improves (relatively). No study exists where people's health has got worse from going low carb on those foods.
The mainstream push that 'red meat' is bad - that's it (if this is considered a consensus then how can you eat raw food? The 'consensus' is that raw meat will kill you immediately). There are hundreds of articles released about the dangers of red meat, however these are NEVER backed by controlled studies only very arbitrary observations. All controlled studies fully support that cooked low carb
What a load of b*ll*cks!!! Actually, studies have shown again and again that one can get nasty side-effects on zero-carb diets(what they call ketogenic diets). Also, such factors as the drop in physical performance in sports while on zero-carb have also been studied.
The irony is that while there are numerous comments by nutritionists about the dangers of raw, red meat, studies on the dangers of raw meat are few and far between, and there are plenty of studies supporting the consumption of raw, GRASSFED meat as long as one isn't eating raw, grainfed meats.
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My point was to say that meat and carbs come together since thousands of years. Eating them separately is "the exception of the rule" like you wrote.
Heavy meat eaters always eat a good proportion of other things.
BTW, can you provide some links about these studies ?
On the french TV, the advertisings for food always show a warning saying that "one should not eat too much sugar, fat and salt". The food that are promoted are always full of these stuffs! Difficult to eat animal products without some unhealthy stuffs.
Well, we can agree on the issue re meat and carbs usually going together, other than certain exceptions.
Re studies:- I'm not sure what you mean. There are 1000s of studies damning saturated fats. The reference re the notion that saturated fat may be less to blame than heat-created toxins from cooking, comes from this study:-
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/12/6474.long
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I'm still interested to know. Don't get me wrong--I'm not claiming there's necessarily a magic ratio, I'm just getting confused by what seem like contradictory points at times and trying to understand where you're coming from and what it is exactly that you're advocating.
It all depends. I used to have rigid ratios of anywhere from 0% to 25% at times. These days, I veer from having mostly fruit for a week or two(usually only when high-quality raw meat sources are scarce as I increasingly can't stand cooked meat or substandard grainfed raw meat) to sometimes eating only meats for a week at a time(never more than that). But I suppose my fruit-intake is more usually between 5-15%, so 10% basically. Increasing that fruit-intake doesn't harm me unless I eat only raw fruit for 3+ weeks or so.
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Well, we can agree on the issue re meat and carbs usually going together, other than certain exceptions.
Re studies:- I'm not sure what you mean. There are 1000s of studies damning saturated fats. The reference re the notion that saturated fat may be less to blame than heat-created toxins from cooking, comes from this study:-
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/12/6474.long
Studies showing that cooked meat is damaging (and not the junk that is always eaten with it) ?
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It all depends. I used to have rigid ratios of anywhere from 0% to 25% at times. These days, I veer from having mostly fruit for a week or two(usually only when high-quality raw meat sources are scarce as I increasingly can't stand cooked meat or substandard grainfed raw meat) to sometimes eating only meats for a week at a time(never more than that). But I suppose my fruit-intake is more usually between 5-15%, so 10% basically. Increasing that fruit-intake doesn't harm me unless I eat only raw fruit for 3+ weeks or so.
What symptoms do you suffer from with grainfed raw meat ?
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What a load of b*ll*cks!!! Actually, studies have shown again and again that one can get nasty side-effects on zero-carb diets(what they call ketogenic diets). Also, such factors as the driop in physical performance in sports while on zero-cabr have also been studied.
The irony is that while there are numerous comments by nutritionists about the dangers of raw, red meat, studies on the dangers of raw meat are few and far between, and there are plenty of studies supporting the consumption of raw, GRASSFED meat as long as one isn't eating raw, grainfed meats.
Please, provide links of studies showing nasty side-effects and drop in physical performance on zero-carb diets !
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What symptoms do you suffer from with grainfed raw meat ?
Personally, I have never managed to hold raw grainfed meat down without vomiting. I did try, very early on in the diet, raw,intensively-farmed grainfed meat, but it was so foul-tasting that I had to vomit immediately and give up until I eventually found wildcaught foods like fresh swordfish etc. Others get more nasty symptoms, as described in past posts.
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Here's a vague reference to side-effects on ketogenic (ZC) diets(doesn't cover all of them, last I checked):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Adverse_effects
As regards the studies done on the dangers of meats, they are everywhere and easy to find so a simple googling should suffice. Large numbers of studies show that the higher the (cooked) meat-intake is in one's diet the greater is the risk to health.It's generally irrelevant as to the other dietary factors, as, inevitably, the more meat is consumed in the diet, the less people eat of other foods(meat is more satiating, for one thing). To take 1 example, if someone eats 30% of his diet as cooked meat and then increases his meat-intake to 50% of his diet, then, by extension, the foods making up what was 70% of his diet before, now only make up the other 50% of his diet. Simple mathematics.
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Here's a vague reference to side-effects on ketogenic (ZC) diets(doesn't cover all of them, last I checked):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Adverse_effects
As regards the studies done on the dangers of meats, they are everywhere and easy to find so a simple googling should suffice. Large numbers of studies show that the higher the (cooked) meat-intake is in one's diet the greater is the risk to health.It's generally irrelevant as to the other dietary factors, as, inevitably, the more meat is consumed in the diet, the less people eat of other foods(meat is more satiating, for one thing). To take 1 example, if someone eats 30% of his diet as cooked meat and then increases his meat-intake to 50% of his diet, then, by extension, the foods making up what was 70% of his diet before, now only make up the other 50% of his diet. Simple mathematics.
The ketogenic diet is based on dairies and MCT oil. How do you know that it's the low carbs that caused the adverse effects of this diet, and not these unhealthy fat ?
For instance, hypoglycaemia is probably caused by the small and medium chain triglycerides that are metabolised like sugar.
Dr. Jan Kwasniewski. has very good results with his cooked diet high in fat, moderate in protein and low in carbs. Cooked meat don't seem to be so unhealthy in Poland :
"In practice, the diet has shown to be unbelievably very effective measures to cure many sick people from the diseases considered in contemporary medicine incurable. Dr. Jan Kwasniewski has cured thousands of people suffering from various illnesses as Buerger's disease, arthritis, Gastrointestinal disorder, obesity, diabetes and many others applying his "Optimal Diet" and "Selective Currents" to some of them.
An estimated more then two million people are already on the optimal diet. Most of these people live in Poland, though news of the diet has spread throughout the world. There are many optimal eaters in the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Canary Islands and many various countries in Europe and even in Oman.
There are diseases that the medical establishment is even today enable to cure is diabetes. No diabetic who opted for a method commonly applied in modern medicine can eliminate the disease, but 80% of those who have chosen the optimal diet will overcome their disease and that the remaining 20% are going to be better, though not perfect, health.
In 1999 the Polish Cultural Union in Vienna Austria recommended Dr. Jan Kwasniewski as a candidate to Swedish Nobel Prize in medicine."
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AFAIK, the optimal diet also contains lots of dairy. Indeed, it's the principal fat in that diet.
As regards ketogenic diets, the fact that the carbs are so low as to allow ketosis, means that the carb-levels in dairy(or oysters or mussels, or liver, for that matter)are too low to have any significant effect in the diet.
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AFAIK, the optimal diet also contains lots of dairy. Indeed, it's the principal fat in that diet.
Dairy is not the principle fat in the Optimal diet : egg yolks and pork are. (and there is no MCT oil). If cooked meat/fat was so unhealthy, how could a diet based precisely on these foods have so good results ?
As regards ketogenic diets, the fact that the carbs are so low as to allow ketosis, means that the carb-levels in dairy(or oysters or mussels, or liver, for that matter)are too low to have any significant effect in the diet.
You wrote "that one can get nasty side-effects on zero-carb diets(what they call ketogenic diets)". How do you know that it's the low level of carbs in these diets that caused the troubles (and not the food itself) ?
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Dairy is not the principle fat in the Optimal diet : egg yolks and pork are. (and there is no MCT oil). If cooked meat/fat was so unhealthy, how could a diet based precisely on these foods have so good results ?
Incorrect. here is an example of dairy(pasteurised) being promoted as a very important fat on the Optimal Diet:-
http://www.thenutritionmd.com/
Dairy is routinely promoted in Optimal Diet circles, so you're facing a lost cause, there!!! LOL!!
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You wrote "that one can get nasty side-effects on zero-carb diets(what they call ketogenic diets)". How do you know that it's the low level of carbs in these diets that caused the troubles (and not the food itself) ?
Because, logically, one has to assume that the majority of foods in a particular unhealthy diet is the leading cause of health-problems. When a particular food is increased(or minimised), such as cooked meat, and the higher the intake of that food the worse the health-problems become(as according to all the studies), then one can draw the obvious conclusion, that it is not the increasingly smaller portions of trans-fats or carbs that are the problem, but the continually-increasing portions of cooked-meats that are the main problem. Simple mathematics, really.
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As regards the studies done on the dangers of meats, they are everywhere and easy to find so a simple googling should suffice. Large numbers of studies show that the higher the (cooked) meat-intake is in one's diet the greater is the risk to health.It's generally irrelevant as to the other dietary factors, as, inevitably, the more meat is consumed in the diet, the less people eat of other foods(meat is more satiating, for one thing). To take 1 example, if someone eats 30% of his diet as cooked meat and then increases his meat-intake to 50% of his diet, then, by extension, the foods making up what was 70% of his diet before, now only make up the other 50% of his diet. Simple mathematics.
It's your job to provide evidences of your claims, not ours !
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Incorrect. here is an example of dairy(pasteurised) being promoted as a veyr importaqnt fat on the Optimal Diet:-
http://www.thenutritionmd.com/
Dairy is routinely promoted in Optimal Diet circles, so you're facing a lost cause, there!!! LOL!!
I don't see the relation between this MD who promotes a low fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and Kwasniewski's Optimal diet which emphasis egg yolk and fatty meat (butter/heavy cream is also recommended, but dairy is not the main fat as you wrongly believe).
Because, logically, one has to assume that the majority of foods in a particular unhealthy diet is the leading cause of health-problems. When a particular food is increased(or minimised), such as cooked meat, and the higher the intake of that food the worse the health-problems become(as according to all the studies), then one can draw the obvious conclusion, that it is not the increasingly smaller portions of trans-fats or carbs that are the problem, but the continually-increasing portions of cooked-meats that are the main problem. Simple mathematics, really.
As long as I don't see theses studies, I prefer these mathematics :
Some studies show that a high cooked meat consumption can cause health problems, but as some lowcarb diets based on cooked meat (ZC, Optimal diet, etc.) have proven to be healthy, I conclude that it's not the cooked meat that is unhealthy, but what comes with it (mainly refine carbs).
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It's your job to provide evidences of your claims, not ours !
That's where you're wrong! It's actually YOUR job to prove that you 're right, given that the number of studies backing your claims are tiny by comparison to the well-known vast multitude that back up my claims re the dangers of cooked-meats. You not only have to (convincingly) criticise general studies damning cooked-meat-consumption within the population, but also criticise the numerous studies showing the extra cost to health of consuming AGE-rich toxins in cooked meats. In short, you're dead in the water, scientifically-speaking.
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I don't see the relation between this MD who promotes a low fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and Kwasniewski's Optimal diet which emphasis egg yolk and fatty meat (butter/heavy cream is also recommended, but dairy is not the main fat as you wrongly believe).
*Sigh* You're not going to do well trying to convince us that Kwasniewski doesn't highly recommend dairy(fat). Here's a link to the English-language website of the Optimal Diet:-
http://homodiet.netfirms.com/
On that website, he cites egg-fat as the most superior fat, followed by butter-fat and cream-fat, followed, lastly and very leastly at the very bottom,
, by fat from other (animal-) sources.
As long as I don't see theses studies, I prefer these mathematics :
Some studies show that a high cooked meat consumption can cause health problems, but as some lowcarb diets based on cooked meat (ZC, Optimal diet, etc.) have proven to be healthy, I conclude that it's not the cooked meat that is unhealthy, but what comes with it (mainly refine carbs).
Low-carb diets have by no means been proven to be healthy, overall. All they have shown is an improvement re diabetes and a couple of similiar conditions, while still showing massive health-problems in other respects. In short, blaming a tiny component of low-carb diets, such as trans-fats or refined sugars, for the negative effects sustained under the massive load of cooked-meat-consumption, is just dishonest. This reminds me of the pathetic excuses made by the Weston-Price Foundation when their guru, Stephen Byrnes died at the tender age of 41,despite the fact that he was following a so-called "healthy" low-carb cooked diet, free of trans-fats and refined sugars.
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*Sigh* You're not going to do well trying to convince us that Kwasniewski doesn't highly recommend dairy(fat). Here's a link to the English-language website of the Optimal Diet:-
http://homodiet.netfirms.com/
On that website, he cites egg-fat as the most superior fat, followed by butter-fat and cream-fat, followed, lastly and very leastly at the very bottom,
, by fat from other (animal-) sources.
"Chemically, the best are long-chain fully saturated fatty acids, that is to say, solid fats of animal origin"
"The best fats are of animal origin, solid fats, eaten within natural animal tissues."
Butter does not qualify according to theses statements, it is why it is not the *main* fat in this diet, although it is indeed recommended.
Low-carb diets have by no means been proven to be healthy, overall. All they have shown is an improvement re diabetes and a couple of similiar conditions, while still showing massive health-problems in other respects. In short, blaming a tiny component of low-carb diets, such as trans-fats or refined sugars, for the negative effects sustained under the massive load of cooked-meat-consumption, is just dishonest. This reminds me of the pathetic excuses made by the Weston-Price Foundation when their guru, Stephen Byrnes died at the tender age of 41,despite the fact that he was following a so-called "healthy" low-carb cooked diet, free of trans-fats and refined sugars.
Stephen Byrnes had been diagnosed with AIDS and suffered numerous health problems until he died due to the drugs he was given.
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That's where you're wrong! It's actually YOUR job to prove that you 're right, given that the number of studies backing your claims are tiny by comparison to the well-known vast multitude that back up my claims re the dangers of cooked-meats. You not only have to (convincingly) criticise general studies damning cooked-meat-consumption within the population, but also criticise the numerous studies showing the extra cost to health of consuming AGE-rich toxins in cooked meats. In short, you're dead in the water, scientifically-speaking.
You also have a multitude of studies to prove that high cholesterol is caused by animal fat, that fruits and vegetables are healthy or that saturated fat is unhealthy.
It is not the number of studies that proves something!
I think the experience has more value than often biased scientific studies.
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You also have a multitude of studies to prove that high cholesterol is caused by animal fat, that fruits and vegetables are healthy or that saturated fat is unhealthy.
It is not the number of studies that proves something!
I think the experience has more value than often biased scientific studies.
Here is proof that the earth is flat:http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/ :D
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You also have a multitude of studies to prove that high cholesterol is caused by animal fat, that fruits and vegetables are healthy or that saturated fat is unhealthy.
It is not the number of studies that proves something!
I think the experience has more value than often biased scientific studies.
Re the cholesterol issue:- While there were many studies backing both sides of the cholesterol debate, there are, by contrast, very few studies backing the notion that a low-carb cooked diet is healthy. That means that, so far, the only thing cooked low-carb proponents can resort to is citing lame conspiracy theories.
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"Chemically, the best are long-chain fully saturated fatty acids, that is to say, solid fats of animal origin"
"The best fats are of animal origin, solid fats, eaten within natural animal tissues."
Butter does not qualify according to theses statements, it is why it is not the *main* fat in this diet, although it is indeed recommended.
Yet the above statement is directly contradicted by this statement in the same text:-
"The most suitable for humans are fats contained in the yolk of a hen’s egg. Those contained in quails' egg are similar, but these eggs are far more expensive. The real value of egg yolk fats, for our body, according to a reliable scientific investigation, is four times higher than the value of the fat from butter or cream, and dramatically higher than the biological (and factual) value of the remaining fats."
At any rate, judging from reports of what people eat on a standard Optimal Diet(eg:-
https://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/archive/index.php/t-246339.html
dairy is clearly a very important component.
Stephen Byrnes had been diagnosed with AIDS and suffered numerous health problems until he died due to the drugs he was given.
Yes, I've read that claim before by apologists from the cooked low-carb camp, like Barry Groves, but it is so absurd a claim, it can't be taken seriously. It reminds me of the pathetic PR attempt by the Atkins family to cover up the fact that Dr Atkins had heart-disease.
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Re supplements:- As members know, I tend to take cod liver oil supplements(raw, fermented from Blue Ice) and dr ron's freeze-dried organs(as UK farms won't sell some organs). The cod-liver oil is to take into account occasional eating of grainfed meats, cooked meats, and to get my omega-3 levels as high as possible. I'm now taking a krill oil supplement as well since it's now the next big thing, and accodring to mercola, better than cod liver oil.
. I'm not personally convinced re krill oil as it's never been a typical human food, like cod liver oil is, and it's hidesouly expensive. 1 cod liver oil bottle(liquid) from Blue Ice costs 29.99 pounds yet lasts(at 2ml serving a day) c.183 days. The krill oil supplement requires 2 capsules a day and lasts just a month as there are only 60 capsules a bottle.
. So, it does sound like a rip-off. Still, we'll see.
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Hmm, it may only be a placebo-like effect but I'm feeling slightly more "on the ball" these past few mornings, after taking those krill oil supplements regularly(double the recommended daily dose re 4 capsules a day).
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Re the cholesterol issue:- While there were many studies backing both sides of the cholesterol debate, there are, by contrast, very few studies backing the notion that a low-carb cooked diet is healthy. That means that, so far, the only thing cooked low-carb proponents can resort to is citing lame conspiracy theories.
Aren't we all relatively low carbers here? Does anyone here actually eat as much carbs as the Standard American Diet (55% of calories, as defined by Barbara Gower, PhD, professor of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham)?
There is a growing mountain of evidence that cooked lower-carb is superior to cooked higher-carb (raw lower carb is of course even better). Garty Taubes wrote a massive book on the subject and referenced numerous studies. Here is just a sample of studies and reviews in the past decade:
Dr. Jay Wortman's current Health Canada study of Namgis First Nation and other residents of Alert Bay, http://www.drjaywortman.com/blog/wordpress/about/ (see also HTTP://WWW.CBC.CA/THELENS/BIGFATDIET/)
Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study
Tommy Jönsson, Staffan Lindeberg et al
Received June 23, 2009; Accepted July 16, 2009
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2724493
"we found improved glucose tolerance independent of weight-loss after 12 weeks of Paleolithic diet compared to a Mediterranean-like diet"
Moderately Reduced Carbohydrate Diet Keeps People Feeling Full Longer
ScienceDaily (June 12, 2009)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611142405.htm
Study finds Paleolithic diet can improve metabolic health
February 20, 2009, 2:59 PM
by Mark Sisson, LA Nutrition Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/x-1369-LA-Nutrition-Examiner~y2009m2d20-Study-finds-Paleolithic-diet-can-improve-metabolic-health
(Studya; Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. Sebastian, A. et al, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19209185?dopt=Abstract)
Low-carb beats low-fat in diet duel: Those eating fewer carbs also had lower cholesterol, surprising study finds
The Associated Press
updated 6:48 p.m. ET, Wed., July. 16, 2008
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25708495
Low-fat Diets May Not Be Best For Weight Loss, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2008)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080716171134.htm
Another China study
(the data of the China Study actually associates plant foods with obesity)
by Michael R. Eades, MD
July 2008
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/obesity/another-china-study/#more-1265
Low Carbohydrate Diets: Why You Don't Want the "Experts" to Tell You What to Eat
Richard D. Feinman, PhD
22 August 2007
http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008/12/25/5383/low-carbohydrate-diets-why-you-dont-want-the-experts-to-tell-you-what-to-eat/
Diabetes Treatment Shocker: The Atkins Diet
Friday, June 09, 2006
Duke University Medical Center study headed by Eric Westman M.D., M.H.Sc.
http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/2006/06/diabetes-treatment-shocker-atkins-diet.html
(See also Low-Carb Beats Low-Fat in Short Term Diet Comparison, by Becky Oskin, http://inside.duke.edu/article.php?IssueID=93&ParentID=6949)
Ketogenic diets and physical performance
Stephen D Phinney
Nutrition & Metabolism 2004
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2
Fruit and vegetables re post (Polish Very Low Carb Female Athlete Study)
Hyperlipid
Monday, December 31, 2007
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2007/12/fruit-and-vegetables-re-post.html
(2002 study abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12172876?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)
The Late Role of Grains and Legumes in the Human Diet, and Biochemical Evidence of their Evolutionary Discordance
by Loren Cordain, Ph.D.
1999
www.beyondveg.com/cat/paleodiet/index.shtml
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The trouble is that the scientific evidence shows the exact opposite, that cooked low-carb diets ,while effective re a few carb-oriented conditions like diabetes, contribute heavily towards coronary heart -disease and many other health-problems. In short, the key factor re increased mortality re diet seems to be cooked animal foods, especially cooked animal fat. Cooked plant-foods, by contrast, don't have the vast amounts of heat-created toxins, so are far less harmful(unless people are stupid enough to go 100% vegan, in which case, they eventually get nutritional deficiencies). In short, cooked low-carb diets are poison.
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I listed some of the best scientific evidence above, and at one of the links, your concern is addressed directly:
4. Will a low-carb diet increase my risk of heart disease?
This is another common myth. It is based on the notion that if you eliminate carbs as an energy source you will have to increase fat intake to compensate (there is a limit to how much protein you can eat). It was thought that an increase in fat would lead to high cholesterol which is associated with heart disease. When the studies were actually done on this, however, much to everyone's surprise, the opposite happened. People on a low-carb diet improved their cholesterol readings even when they increased their fat intake and even when their intake of saturated fat (the so-called bad fat) increased. It appears that when you body must rely on fat for energy, the saturated fat you eat gets burned up before it can cause any harm. Another factor that plays a role in heart disease is the level of inflammation in our system. If the markers of inflammation are high we recognize this as a sign of increased risk of heart disease. We commonly order a C-reactive protein test, a marker of inflammation in the blood, to assess a person's risk. A recent study showed that people on a low-carb diet demonstrated significantly reduced inflammatory markers.
Although there haven't been any long term studies yet to prove it, the existing science suggests that a low-carb high-fat diet may actually reduce the risk of heart disease.
http://www.drjaywortman.com/blog/wordpress/my-big-fat-diet-faqs/
Dr. Sears talks in The Anti-Inflammation Zone: Reversing the Silent Epidemic That's Destroying Our Health (2005) about the Lyon Diet Heart Study (http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/6/779?ijkey=7a97766d6e0dafd3dcf3be42716bf48f283e8efa#R4) which found mortality benefits from a "Mediterranean diet," low in high-glycemic carbs: "Of course, your overall diet plays a major role in reversing heart disease risk. Powerful evidence of this comes from the Lyon Diet Heart Study.... In this study, heart attack survivors who followed a low glycemic-load diet (with very low levels of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids) experienced a 70 percent reduction in fatal heart attacks compared to those who followed a high glycemic-load diet (with high levels of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids). More striking, not a single sudden death (the primary cause of cardiovascular mortality from heart disease) occurred in the group with the low glycemic-load and low omega-6 fatty acid diet."
The early studies of low-glycemic (cooked) Paleo diets are finding it to be superior even to the Mediterranean (cooked) diet:
Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study
Tommy Jönsson, Staffan Lindeberg et al
Received June 23, 2009; Accepted July 16, 2009
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2724493
"we found improved glucose tolerance independent of weight-loss after 12 weeks of Paleolithic diet compared to a Mediterranean-like diet"
Study finds Paleolithic diet can improve metabolic health
February 20, 2009, 2:59 PM
by Mark Sisson, LA Nutrition Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/x-1369-LA-Nutrition-Examiner~y2009m2d20-Study-finds-Paleolithic-diet-can-improve-metabolic-health
(Studya; Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. Sebastian, A. et al, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19209185?dopt=Abstract)
So when it comes to cooked diets, the current science is supporting low-glycemic-carb, high-omega-3-fat Paleo diets as the best yet tested.
What portion of your diet, as a % of calories, is carbs, Tyler? Does anyone here eat more than 50% of their diet by calories as carbs, so they can speak from experience about whether a raw HC diet is superior to raw LC? When making comparisons, we should avoid confounding variables, so we should compare cooked LC to cooked HC and raw LC to raw HC, rather than cooked LC to raw HC or raw moderate-carb.
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In short, cooked low-carb diets are poison.
Banting
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The trouble is that the scientific evidence shows the exact opposite, that cooked low-carb diets ,while effective re a few carb-oriented conditions like diabetes, contribute heavily towards coronary heart -disease and many other health-problems. In short, the key factor re increased mortality re diet seems to be cooked animal foods, especially cooked animal fat. Cooked plant-foods, by contrast, don't have the vast amounts of heat-created toxins, so are far less harmful(unless people are stupid enough to go 100% vegan, in which case, they eventually get nutritional deficiencies). In short, cooked low-carb diets are poison.
Tyler,
If you want to be credible, you'll have to precise what cooking methods, temperature, length of cooking, etc. can make a low-carb diet poisonous.
Again, many cooked low to moderate carb diets (Cordain, Seignalet, Lutz, Kwasniewski, etc.) have proven to be healthy and have improved or cured many diseases including heart diseases...
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Yes, and it depends on what one means by "low carb," "moderate carb," and "high carb" of course. In general, when two or more diets have been tested against each other, the lower-carb, lower-glycemic diet has performed best.
My old Paleo diet varied between around 35 to 45% calories as carbs, which was a dramatic improvement for me over my earlier nutritionist-recommended diet at around 60+% carbs and the SAD at around 50 - 55% carbs, in particular because I eliminated gluten and dairy. When I went to a VLC cooked diet with some raw at around 5-10% plant carbs I experienced even more dramatic improvements and when I went 100% mostly-raw carnivore, with only small amounts of animal carbs intermittently, I fared still better, though it is still early.
In a couple of the studies I listed above, Atkins beat out Sears and Ornish. I don't know the exact macronutrient proportions in the studies, but here are the ratios for those diets, in general:
Diet Protein Carbs Fat
Atkins-type diets 18-23 4-26 51-78
Zone 30 40 30
Dean Ornish 20 70 10
In the first two studies that tested Cordain/Lindeberg-type Paleo diets they beat first a SAD and then a Mediterranean diet. Here are the general proportions for those types of diets:
Diet Protein Carbohydrate Fat
Low-fat H-G diets 19-35 22-40 28-47
SAD 15-20 49-55 30-34
Mediterranean 15-20 40-60 25-35
By "low-fat" hunter-gatherer diets, I mean lower than Arctic diets (they still have a higher maximum range of fat than most clinical diets). So the clinical studies seem to suggest that the lower carb diets tend to generally produce better results than the higher-carb diets, and of course all clinical studies involve largely cooked diets. Since most traditional peoples eat at least some raw meat/fish and all except some Arctic peoples eat raw plants, observational surveys in which traditional peoples' diets are analyzed and their health stats measured suggest that eating more raw foods than avg is at least not harmful and potentially beneficial.
I believe the Phinney, Wortman and Stefansson-Bellevue diets all involved less than 5% calories as carbs, as do Lex's and mine, and they appeared to produce positive results, with the possible exception of Stefansson's companion in his study, who had some negative health stats but reported feeling good, as I recall. Some of this data is from notes I've recorded in the past as I learned about the ratios of various diets, rather than from these specific studies. So if someone has more accurate detail re: these studies, feel free to report it.
BTW, I used to believe that the Cordain/Lindeberg model of around 30-45% of calories as fat was probably close to optimal, though I wasn't totally decided, because Ray Audette and the Inuit seemed to do well on higher proportions and I wasn't fully convinced that proportions were really all that important anyway. Since then I've moved in the direction of thinking that 65-85% of calories as fat is more optimal for most people, with some exceptions depending on individual pre-existing problems like gland problems. It's not set in stone for me. Just as before, I remain open to new information. There also seems to be remarkable resiliency and adaptability among people who eat hunter-gatherer type diets, with fat levels ranging from 28 percent all the way up to 85% producing results far superior to those of the SAD. So macronutrient proportions seem to be less important than the types of foods consumed.
So I believe the whole ZC vs VLC vs LC vs moderate carb vs high carb raging debate misses some of the more important points, such as wild vs farmed vs industrial foods, carnivore vs vegetarian and raw vs cooked.
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There's that famous study which showed that the Masai had atherosclerosis tendencies in their arteries, despite(because of?) their low-carb diets:-
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/26
Re the mention of exercise alleviating certain symptoms of inflammation/heart-disease:- 1 thing I get worked up about is when others mention tribes like the Eskimoes or the Masai ignoring the fact that such tribes all had a level of exercise/physical activity which was far greater than the sedentary lifestyle of Westerners, so that daily exercise would have helped alleviate some of their symptoms to a certain extent. Plus, all these hunter-gatherers tended to have very short lifespans so simply didn't have the time to develop the usual health-problems gained on a cooked diet in a Western nation, such as diabetes type 2 etc.This is why I'm so against the absurd starry-eyed Weston-Price-derived nonsense that is routinely peddled.
*incidentally, I should add that (cooked) ketogenic diets are well-known to produce side-effects. I believe kidney-stones are 1 frequently cited example, among others.
*1 other thing. As you stated above, most tribes like the inuit did eat fermented foods and raw meats(sometimes aged) which would offset nasty side-effects from eating cooked foods. Plus, they would have frequently had to resort to caloric restriction during famine-periods, and it's well-known that (other than eating raw) the only relatively effective way to reduce the load of heat-created toxins in the body(from eating cooked foods) is go in for caloric restriction.
The point is that cooked low-carb diets like Kwasniewski and Atkins are deeply problematic, not just because so many of the gurus recommend processed foods or supplements(atkins-style low-carb candy-bars for example) but also some of them like that fool Kwasniewski actually recommend dairy products heavily. I'll grant that something like Cordain's cooked palaeolithic diet is quite a lot better by comparison to the others as he routinely mentions ways to limit the creation of heat-created toxins via cooking, plus he warns people away from dairy, grains and legumes, something which, just by itself, would greatly lessen auto-immune-related symptoms. That said, the very fact that he recommends lightly-cooked meats means that people are still ingesting inflamation-causing heat-created toxins such as AGEs, so it's still pretty poor (though, again, unlike fools like Kwasniewski, Cordain at least has the sense not to promote consumption of vast amounts of cooked animal fats, no doubt partly because he is aware of the fact that heating animal fats causes far more heat-created toxins to form than in any other type of food.
Another obvious point is that even a cooked low-carb diet, however intrinsically unhealthy in the long-term, , may well potentially provide a few
benefits in the short-term, simply by avoiding highly-processed foods/trans-fats and the like - but that's not an endorsement, really.
For me, the real test, though, is longevity. The older people I knew who went on diets consisting of high percentages of cooked-meat(and admittedly (mostly pasteurised) dairy), in a Kwasniewski-like way, are now all dead from heart-attacks, strokes etc.
. By contrast, the ones I know who've survived the longest tend overwhelmingly to be ones favouring the consumption of plant-foods over cooked animal foods, and going in for caloric restriction.
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Tyler, I hate to take up so much of your personal journal with scientific debate, so if you want to move this to a separate topic thread, feel free.
There's that famous study which showed that the Masai had atherosclerosis tendencies in their arteries, despite(because of?) their low-carb diets:-
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/26
Yes, but they didn't develop heart disease or have high overall mortality rates from heart disease and other diseases of civilization. Plus, there is the confounding variable of high dairy consumption. Many of the studies I cite have zero to moderate dairy consumption and I don't eat dairy. So the clogged arteries of the Masai don't appear to be relevant to me, specifically.
Re the mention of exercise alleviating certain symptoms of inflammation/heart-disease:- 1 thing I'm annoyed about when people mention tribes like the Eskimoes or the Masai is that they mostly ignore the fact that such tribes all had a level of exercise/physical activity which was far greater than the sedentary lifestyle of Westerners....
Yes, there you have a good point. That is a potentially confounding variable. However, there is also evidence that exercise does not do much to improve heart disease survival rates:
Exercise no help for heart failure patients: 'Disappointing' study found that working out didn't improve survival rates
The Associated Press
updated 5:27 p.m. ET, Tues., Nov. 11, 2008
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27667661/
NEW ORLEANS - Exercise can do a lot of good for most people, but it apparently isn’t much help to those with heart failure, the fastest-growing heart problem in the United States.
Plus, all these hunter-gatherers tended to have very short lifespans so simply didn't have the time to develop the usual health-problems gained on a cooked diet in a Western nation, such as diabetes type 2 etc.
Wow, I can't believe that you as a Paleo dieter are bringing up that old canard again that was refuted long ago. Why do you eat Paleo if you don't believe that avoiding dairy, grains and legumes reduces the risk of diseases of civilization? Why not call your diet a raw nonallergenic diet or some such thing? Increasingly you've been sounding like the critics of Paleo dieting, but that may well be because we've only had a couple of posters here recently who advocated nonPaleo positions like near-fruitarianism and pro-raw-dairy and you haven't had a chance to defend Paleo against critics. Let me offer you an opportunity to be more positive about Paleo. You've spoken about what you find nonsensical about pro-Paleo diet arguments, what do you find makes sense about the Paleo aspect of RPD?
Actually, average human life expectancies DECLINED a bit when Stone Age hunter-gatherers adopted an agrarian lifestyle at the start of the Neolithic era. The later increases in life expectancy were mainly due to public health achievements such as better sanitation, safer food, effective systems of quarantine, immunizations and improved childbirth survival rates.
It is true that hunter-gatherers studied during modern times do not have as great an average lifespan as those values found in industrialized nations. However, most deaths among adults in hunter-gatherer societies are related to accidents and trauma from living in the wild without modern medical care, as opposed to the chronic degenerative diseases that afflict modern societies. Thirty three years was the AVERAGE life expectancy of a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer male, not the maxiumum life expectancy (and as William has pointed out, newer techniques of estimating age from bones are increasing the estimates of past lifespans). A hunter gatherer who survived childbirth, infectious disease, accidents, battles, and wild animals could be expected to live into his/her 60s and possibly beyond.
According to Loren Cordain, "In most hunter-gatherer populations today, approximately 10-20% of the population is 60 years of age or older. These elderly people have been shown to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of chronic disease (obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels) that universally afflict the elderly in western societies. When these people adopt western diets, their health declines and they begin to exhibit signs and symptoms of 'diseases of civilization.'" (“FAQs,” http://thepaleodiet.com/faqs/)
See also:
Longevity & health in ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic peoples: Not what you may have been told
by Ward Nicholson
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml
EXCERPT: <<Special update as of April 1999: LATE-BREAKING ADVANCES IN PALEOPATHOLOGICAL AGE-ESTIMATION TECHNIQUES have suggested that studies based on earlier techniques (as in the paper discussed here) may underestimate the age at death of older individuals and overestimate that of younger individuals. It's possible the range of estimation errors involved could be substantial. Thus, the profile of age-distribution results in compilation studies like the one discussed below may be flattened or compressed with respect to "true age.">>
Paleo Longevity Redux
Letter to the Editor
By Jeff D. Leach
Public Health Nutrition: 10(11), 1336–1337
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPHN%2FPHN10_11%2FS1368980007814492a.pdf&code=c563005ad02c96173592b187924f0996
This is why I'm so against the absurd starry-eyed Weston-Price-derived nonsense that is routinely peddled.
I think the reason that WAPF people tend to be so rabid and impervious to reason is that they have a powerful profit motive driving their support of raw dairy and whole grains (despite the fact that some of the peoples that Price studied ate neither): their organization is funded by raw-dairy and whole-grain farmers and many members are such farmers themselves. As a result, I have found it generally pointless to try to engage them in discussion about raw dairy or whole grains. I was shocked, for example, at the way Sally Fallon tore into Loren Cordain at a Paleo forum, despite his unflappable politeness. Their profit-generated zeal and rage often carry over to the rank-and-file that they convince. I sometimes try to engage these people, but generally regret doing so, including a very recent case.
So in a sense I don't blame the WAPF people, because they are trying to defend their economic survival. I don't agree with it, but it is understandable. It's easier for someone like Cordain or you or me to be reasonable about these matters because our livelihood is not based on the diets we advocate. Cordain, for example, is going to get his university salary regardless of what diet he promotes and if he modifies his dietary recommendations he could probably still publish an additional book or two (a la D'Adamo). In contrast, if Fallon were to abandon raw dairy and whole grains, the raw-dairy and whole-grain farmers would cease funding the WAPF.
*incidentally, I should add that (cooked) ketogenic diets are well-known to produce side-effects. I believe kidney-stones are 1 frequently cited example.
It's only anecdotal, but my dark, particle-filled urine and chronic kidney stones problems went away when I adopted a gluten-free, dairy-free cooked Paleo diet.
1 other thing. As you stated above, most tribes like the inuit did eat fermented foods and raw meats(sometimes aged) which would offset nasty side-effects from eating cooked foods. Plus, they would have frequently had to resort to caloric restriction during famine-periods, and it's well-known that (other than eating raw) the only relatively effective way to reduce the load of heat-created toxins in the body(from eating cooked foods) is go in for caloric restriction.
These are your best points yet and underline the need for more study. I agree with you that raw and low-cooked foods do seem to be healthier anecdotally and in population surveys than modern cooking techniques. We need clinical studies on this.
The point is that cooked low-carb diets like Kwasniewski and Atkins are deeply problematic,
I don't think people here disagree with you about cooked diets, it's your singling out of low-carb cooked diets that I think some of us take issue with, since high-carb cooked diets have been demonstrated time and again to be even more unhealthful than low-carb cooked diets. As I mentioned before, Gary Taubes wrote a massive (600+ page) book on the subject, though I suspect you might a priori dismiss his writings because he eats a cooked diet that includes dairy and he is dismissive of Paleo (his book gives focuses on one point which some Paleo researchers made that he disagrees with and ignores the more important contributions of the field, and it gives the impression that Boyd Eaton is the only major researcher in the field, giving short shrift to researchers who are currently more active in the field, such as Cordain, Lindeberg, Phinney and others). Despite these weaknesses, I find the book valuable for the extensive historical research it includes and the mountain of evidence it analyzes and references.
Your ignoring of the accumulating evidence on this is puzzling. I don't think you differ nearly so much in practice from us than you do in rhetoric. I suspect that your own diet is lower-carb than the SAD, Ornish and Mediterranean diets, yet for some reason you have failed to respond to my inquiries on this.
not just because so many of the gurus recommend processed foods or supplements(atkins-style low-carb candy-bars for example)
That's something I've heard conflicting stories on. I have no personal interest in defending Atkins (I think Atkins made a huge mistake by advocating unlimited dairy, for example--though my personal experience does bias me on that issue, as you've pointed out), but was it Atkins himself who advocated that candy bar crap, or the corporation that he sold the rights to his name to? At times it sounds like the Atkins Corp. may differ from Atkins himself in similar ways that the WAPF differs from Weston A. Price. I skimmed Atkins' first book and it's amazing how different it is from the popular perception in the mass media and from the processed products that the Atkins Corp. sells.
I'll grant that something like Cordain's cooked palaeolithic diet is quite a lot better by comparison to the others as he routinely mentions ways to limit the creation of heat-created toxins via cooking, plus he warns people away from dairy, grains and legumes, something which, just by itself, would greatly lessen auto-immune-related symptoms. That said, the very fact that he recommends lightly-cooked meats means that people are still ingesting inflamation-causing heat-created toxins such as AGEs, so it's still pretty poor (though, again, unlike fools like Kwasniewski, Cordain at least has the sense not to promote consumption of vast amounts of cooked animal fats, no doubt partly because he is aware of the fact that heating animal fats causes far more heat-created toxins to form than in any other type of food.
I agree, and here some of your reasons for supporting Paleo are revealing themselves--nondairy, no grains or legumes, and lower-cooked. So don't you then agree that the Paleo diets of Cordain, Lindeberg, Phinney and others that tend to be lower-carb, lower-glycemic, cooked at lower temps, and include less hydrogenated plant oil fats are likely healthier than the SAD and Mediterranean diets they have trounced in the studies and wouldn't you think that by avoiding dairy, grains and legumes we might lower our risk for modern chronic diseases and that this might help explain why the remains of Stone Agers older than 30 years have been found to be generally free of such diseases, except for rare cases of "wear-and-tear" arthritis?
Another obvious point is that even a cooked low-carb diet, however intrinsically unhealthy in the long-term, , may well potentially provide a few
benefits in the short-term, simply by avoiding highly-processed foods/trans-fats and the like - but that's not an endorsement, really.
There is more study evidence for long term benefits of cooked low-carb diets (the Framingham study comes to mind, though it tends to get misrepresented by proponents of high-carb, who basically ignore what the actual data says) than for all-raw diets, yet I don't abandon raw dieting on that basis. This just points to the need for research on all-raw diets (but don't hold your breath waiting for that ;) ).
For me, the real test, though, is longevity.
I think that longevity is one of the great misleaders. Longevity tends to be promoted far more by sanitation, wealth, access to medical care, drugs and machines than healthy diets. But at a great cost of suffering from chronic disease. A better test, less confounded by such variables, is the rates of chronic disease at equal ages in populations on different diets. Even better is a clinical test in which most confounding variables are controlled for. Still better for my own personal needs is my own actual experience.
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good points paleophil.
Also, have you read Good calories Bad calories by Gary Taubes...that book contains all the scientific evidence you need that saturated fats do NOT cause any disease, whether it be diabetes, heart disease, cancer etc. There has never been a link, there never will be.
Tyler, you point to "studies" claiming that cooked saturated fats are bad...if you've read that book you will realise that many scientific studies that you refer to have either been misinterpreted, are biased, or have been reported badly by journalists who don;t know anything about science...which is why it's difficult to believe your claims are "based on science".
If cooked saturated fats were so bad, why was cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc extremely rare before the 19th century? afaik, people before then ate MORE cooked saturated fats in the form of lard, butter, tallow, etc (which aren't raw).
People have been consuming cooked animal fats for thousands of years, yet western diseases were rare to nonexistant, until only recently...
I agree that raw is better, obv, otherwise I wouldn;t eat this way, but there are FAR worse things to eat than cooked saturated fat.
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People have been consuming cooked animal fats for thousands of years, yet western diseases were rare to nonexistant, until only recently...
But there were many other dangerous diseases that people were prone to. They were not so healthy, although healthier than contemporary people.
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Yes, but they didn't develop heart disease or have high overall mortality rates from heart disease and other diseases of civilization. Plus, there is the confounding variable of high dairy consumption. Many of the studies I cite have zero to moderate dairy consumption and I don't eat dairy. So the clogged arteries of the Masai don't appear to be relevant to me, specifically.
Actually, the dairy mention is very relevant indeed as dairy is such a major component of most cooked-low-carb diets(even Stefansson, the "ultimate" low-carb guru heavily advocates dairy-consumption. Your citing of dairy-free palaeo diet is rather disingenuous, therefore, as it is only a small subset of cooked low carb(dairy-inclusive) diets. As regards the heart-disease issue, it's made clear that heavy daily exercise protected them from heart-disease, not their diets by any means. Plus, as I've pointed out previously, the Masai have very short lifespans so quite a number of conditions that normally appear in old age would not necessarily affect them if they die before that point.
Yes, there you have a good point. That is a potentially confounding variable. However, there is also evidence that exercise does not do much to improve heart disease survival rates:
Well, 1 study doesn't prove anything. There was 1 recent claim for example that doing exercise didn't reduce weight, which was also misleading and attacked heavily by scientific critics re methodology. The key point is that the kind of heavy daily exercise practised by the Masai(and even more so by Palaeo-era tribespeople) is quite different, in terms of better fitness/health benefits, from the kind of poor levels of exercise as found in modern times.
Wow, I can't believe that you as a Paleo dieter are bringing up that old canard again that was refuted long ago. Why do you eat Paleo if you don't believe that avoiding dairy, grains and legumes reduces the risk of diseases of civilization? Why not call your diet a raw nonallergenic diet or some such thing? Increasingly you've been sounding like the critics of Paleo dieting, but that may well be because we've only had a couple of posters here recently who advocated nonPaleo positions like near-fruitarianism and pro-raw-dairy and you haven't had a chance to defend Paleo against critics. Let me offer you an opportunity to be more positive about Paleo. You've spoken about what you find nonsensical about pro-Paleo diet arguments, what do you find makes sense about the Paleo aspect of RPD?
Actually, average human life expectancies DECLINED a bit when Stone Age hunter-gatherers adopted an agrarian lifestyle at the start of the Neolithic era. The later increases in life expectancy were mainly due to public health achievements such as better sanitation, safer food, effective systems of quarantine, immunizations and improved childbirth survival rates.
It is true that hunter-gatherers studied during modern times do not have as great an average lifespan as those values found in industrialized nations. However, most deaths among adults in hunter-gatherer societies are related to accidents and trauma from living in the wild without modern medical care, as opposed to the chronic degenerative diseases that afflict modern socieities.
Look, I've been quoting/citing beyondveg.com and Cordain for years re such issues. That said, both pro-cooked-palaeo proponents and WAPF-followers all have this religious belief in the absurd notion that native tribes were all 100% free of disease. I back-checked some of the more extreme claims, on several occasions. I found out that the Maoris actually suffered very poor health even well before the white colonists arrived(though not as much as after contact) - ironically, Maori health only really improved once they started turning to Western diets c.1900! Then I came across claims that the Native Americans and Inuit were 100% free of disease until white colonists arrived from Europe. I duly found a scientific paper stating that the Inuit did indeed have tuberculosis in pre-Contact times. So, I mean this whole "Noble Savage" myth truly annoys me as it is based on an absurd religious-inspired notion of some perfect (and mythical) "Garden of Eden" in the past. The palaeolithic era was filled with mass infanticide, cannibalism and other harsh ways of living and was by no means perfect.
I don't think people here disagree with you about cooked diets, it's your singling out of low-carb cooked diets that I think some of us take issue with, since high-carb cooked diets have been demonstrated time and again to be even more unhealthful than low-carb cooked diets. As I mentioned before, Gary Taubes wrote a massive (600+ page) book on the subject, though I suspect you might a priori dismiss his writings because he eats a cooked diet that includes dairy and he is dismissive of Paleo (his book gives focuses on one point which some Paleo researchers made that he disagrees with and ignores the more important contributions of the field, and it gives the impression that Boyd Eaton is the only major researcher in the field, giving short shrift to researchers who are currently more active in the field, such as Cordain, Lindeberg, Phinney and others). Despite these weaknesses, I find the book valuable for the extensive historical research it includes and the mountain of evidence it analyzes and references.
The reason I dismiss Taubes' writings is that, just like cooked-low-carb gurus, his only recourse in the end is to cite conspiracy-theories. Another point is that science is always on the side of the big battalions. In other words, when there are 1000s of studies damning (cooked) meats and just a handful favouring the other side, the general scientific concensus is on the side of the former. Now Taubes can make sensationalist claims re using the wrong methodology or even accuse some scientists of outright fraud(after all even scientists cannot be perfect). But he simply cannot convincingly denounce the 1000s of studies out there which focus on heat-created toxins in cooked animal fats, the higher mortality risk of diets high in (cooked) meats etc Conspiracy theories might apply , to some extent, to Communist countries where restrictions applied to science, but not to the entire world!
Your ignoring of the accumulating evidence on this is puzzling. I don't think you differ nearly so much in practice from us than you do in rhetoric. I suspect that your own diet is lower-carb than the SAD, Ornish and Mediterranean diets, yet for some reason you have failed to respond to my inquiries on this.
I have many times been forced to go on weeks-long carb-binges(well raw fruit) when high-quality meat sources were difficult to obtain or for social reasons). I found no harm to my health as a result, yet, I have suffered a great deal from eating cooked animal foods, especially cooked animal fats(negligible effects from cooked plant foods). So, I am perfectly well aware that high carb is not an issue, whereas going for cooked animal food is far worse. If it weren't that my food-costs would be even higher if I ate far more carbs, I wouldn't mind going for Instincto-like diets(80% raw plant foods, 20% raw animal foods) -plus, of course, I'd spend too much of my time eating - at least with raw animal fats like suet, appetite is quickly dulled within 5 minutes.
The key for me is that raw plant foods, while perfectly healthy per se(ie they don't have heat-created toxins etc.), are not complete foods so that I have to supplement with raw animal foods to compensate.
That's something I've heard conflicting stories on. I have no personal interest in defending Atkins (I think Atkins made a huge mistake by advocating unlimited dairy, for example--though my personal experience does bias me on that issue, as you've pointed out), but was it Atkins himself who advocated that candy bar crap, or the corporation that he sold the rights to his name to? At times it sounds like the Atkins Corp. may differ from Atkins himself in similar ways that the WAPF differs from Weston A. Price. I skimmed Atkins' first book and it's amazing how different it is from the popular perception in the mass media and from the processed products that the Atkins Corp. sells.
I heard a very vague claim that Atkins supported Aajonus' raw-meat theories in private. No guarantee whether this is true or not. I do know that every guru, other than Aajonus, routinely peddles supplements as it's the easiest way to cash in(diet-books provide little profit, no doubt due to publishers getting most of it).
I agree, and here some of your reasons for supporting Paleo are revealing themselves--nondairy, no grains or legumes, and lower-cooked. So don't you then agree that the Paleo diets of Cordain, Lindeberg, Phinney and others that tend to be lower-carb, lower-glycemic, cooked at lower temps, and include less hydrogenated plant oil fats are likely healthier than the SAD and Mediterranean diets they have trounced in the studies and wouldn't you think that by avoiding dairy, grains and legumes we might lower our risk for modern chronic diseases and that this might help explain why the remains of Stone Agers older than 30 years have been found to be generally free of such diseases, except for rare cases of "wear-and-tear" arthritis?
Just because a cited diet is "less worse" than an even worse SAD-based diet doesn't make it healthy. And, come to think of it, trans-fats only form a very tiny percentage of daily-intake in SAD-diets, the rest of a SAD diet consists of cooked meats much like a cooked palaeo diet, just with extra unhealthy stuff like dairy and grains. I agree that cooked palaeo diets provide a reduced risk for
some auto-immune-related conditions, but they 're still very ineffective overall. I mean, cooked foods are supposed to be something 200 times more immunoreactive than raw foods, so raw foods diets would likely be more effective:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_endproduct
There is more study evidence for long term benefits of cooked low-carb diets (the Framingham study comes to mind, though it tends to get misrepresented by proponents of high-carb, who basically ignore what the actual data says) than for all-raw diets, yet I don't abandon raw dieting on that basis. This just points to the need for research on all-raw diets (but don't hold your breath waiting for that ;) ).
This is precisely my point. Ultimately, the fall-back argument of every pro-cooked-low-carb diet advocate is to claim conspiracy theories or nitpick the multitude of current anti-cooked-animal-food studies and/or cite glowing stories based on myths about the supposed perfect health of the Masai/Inuit/palaeo(take your pick).For me to be convinced re the supposed health-benefits of a cooked diet, I would have to see solid evidence of the notion that humans can easily tolerate(or even require) the heat-created toxins found in cooked foods. Given the multitude of studies damning those very heat-created toxins, I rather doubt such evidence will ever come to light.
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Tyler, you point to "studies" claiming that cooked saturated fats are bad...if you've read that book you will realise that many scientific studies that you refer to have either been misinterpreted, are biased, or have been reported badly by journalists who don;t know anything about science...which is why it's difficult to believe your claims are "based on science".
Unfortunately, Taubes' claims are merely of a sensationalist nature. He is a fomer physicist who without any qualifications as a scientist in medine or biology deigned to make such controversial claims. He reminds me of that fool Linus Pauling who decided also to get away from his own speciality, and recommend vitamin C supplements en mass, despite not having any qualifications in the relevant subject of food-science. Admittedly, taubes' weird pronouncements, such as the claim that exercise doesn't reduce fat, tend to reduce his credibility big time.
Here's a relevant article criticising Taubes' methods which expose him for showing the same sort of negative tactics he accuses his opponents of :-
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28714.html
If cooked saturated fats were so bad, why was cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc extremely rare before the 19th century? afaik, people before then ate MORE cooked saturated fats in the form of lard, butter, tallow, etc (which aren't raw).
People have been consuming cooked animal fats for thousands of years, yet western diseases were rare to nonexistant, until only recently...
This is wholly misleading. For example most people suffer from cancer between the ages of 55-75, yet in past ages most people never managed to live that long to get cancer in the first place.As regards heart-disease etc, people in those days didn't eat trans-fats or refined sugars or highly processed meat products etc, so were "less unhealthy" than in modern times. That does not mean they were healthy because of cooked saturated fats(inspite of, rather). As I pointed out in previous posts, the notion of the "Noble, 100% Healthy savage" is just a myth. Native tribes in the past were subject to disease/epidemics(eg:- read about the mass plagues present in Ancient Rome and China etc.), and were rather less healthy than Dr Price pretended to claim etc.Sure, such tribes had some things going for them:- they exercised far more and ate less food in general due to famine, and caloric restriction is proven as a way of reducing the levels of (cooking-derived)heat-created toxins in the human body. Plus, they also ate some raw foods which countered the negative effects of a diet high in cooked animal foods, to some extent. But the fact that such native tribes were "less unhealthy" than modern humans with the sedentary lifestyles of the latter etc. does NOT make cooked saturated fats healthy by any means.
of course, Dr Price is, ultimately, far more to blame for this religious myth of the Noble (100% healthy) Savage. Taubes is just a minnow by comparison.
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Well, I think I can recommend krill oil as a supplement. I did an experiment re drinking alcohol and swallowing 4 krill oil tablets some time afterwards, and the negative effects the next day were negligible. I think the extra omega-3 acids helped.
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I have many times been forced to go on weeks-long carb-binges(well raw fruit) when high-quality meat sources were difficult to obtain or for social reasons). I found no harm to my health as a result, yet, I have suffered a great deal from eating cooked animal foods, especially cooked animal fats(negligible effects from cooked plant foods). So, I am perfectly well aware that high carb is not an issue, whereas going for cooked animal food is far worse. If it weren't that my food-costs would be even higher if I ate far more carbs, I wouldn't mind going for Instincto-like diets(80% raw plant foods, 20% raw animal foods) -plus, of course, I'd spend too much of my time eating - at least with raw animal fats like suet, appetite is quickly dulled within 5 minutes.
But you're not statistically representative, if I may say so
There're quite many people who could not handle raw fruits or any plants in such amounts (some do not handle them at all or handle only very small amounts), but they do handle quite well cooked animal products while being on low-carb. One of these people is me, as I usually do quite bad after eating greater amounts of fruits and I do quite good after eating good-quality cooked animal products (I eat them occassionally on some family meetings, parties, etc.)
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Well, I think I can recommend krill oil as a supplement. I did an experiment re drinking alcohol and swallowing 4 krill oil tablets some time afterwards, and the negative effects the next day were negligible. I think the extra omega-3 acids helped.
Interesting stuff...presumably the krill oil was heated and you accepted that? Or have you found a raw source?
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Interesting stuff...presumably the krill oil was heated and you accepted that? Or have you found a raw source?
I think that Tyler was talking about this kind of krill oil - http://www.red23.co.uk/Krill-Oil-Pure-Antarctic-NKO_p_769.html
it has been cold extracted
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Interesting stuff...presumably the krill oil was heated and you accepted that? Or have you found a raw source?
It's endorsed by Dr Mercola who also recommends a cold-extracted raw(fermented) cod liver oil from Blue Ice. I generally trust Mercola re this.
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But you're not statistically representative, if I may say so
There're quite many people who could not handle raw fruits or any plants in such amounts (some do not handle them at all or handle only very small amounts), but they do handle quite well cooked animal products while being on low-carb. One of these people is me, as I usually do quite bad after eating greater amounts of fruits and I do quite good after eating good-quality cooked animal products (I eat them occassionally on some family meetings, parties, etc.)
By definition, most people turn to raw diets precisely because they do worse on cooked foods than on raw, so you're in a minority. I'll accept a sizeable proportion of raw, zero-carbers given the palaeo nature of this forum, but , taking all raw diets into account(the ones with raw animal foods in them), you'll find, inevitably, that most do OK or fine on raw carbs(if not eaten in truly vast amounts) but do much worse on cooked foods.
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It's not cold processed. I have called the processing company. they won't tell me what temps it has seen, but will tell you heat has been used.
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By definition, most people turn to raw diets precisely because they do worse on cooked foods than on raw, so you're in a minority. I'll accept a sizeable proportion of raw, zero-carbers given the palaeo nature of this forum, but , taking all raw diets into account(the ones with raw animal foods in them), you'll find, inevitably, that most do OK or fine on raw carbs(if not eaten in truly vast amounts) but do much worse on cooked foods.
No, I'm not in minority, as I do better with raw animal protein and fat, but on the other hand I do digest cooked ones quite well, without any stomach aches; but I definitely do better with low-carb than high-carb, and, as I see, most of the people on this forum made major improvements after switching even to cooked low-carb
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But you're not statistically representative, if I may say so
Yes, it does look like that.
TD, have you considered whether gallbladder/liver function might be different for you? The recent discussion on paleofood list makes me think of this. Apparently someone reacted very badly to cooked fat/butter.
Symptoms vary enough that it's hard to be sure, for instance my symptoms of appendicitis were not the usual ones, made life difficult for a time.
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It's not cold processed. I have called the processing company. they won't tell me what temps it has seen, but will tell you heat has been used.
That's not good! Aiieee! I'd always thought, previously, that Dr Mercola-recommended products of this sort were A-OK.
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Yes, it does look like that.
TD, have you considered whether gallbladder/liver function might be different for you? The recent discussion on paleofood list makes me think of this. Apparently someone reacted very badly to cooked fat/butter.
Symptoms vary enough that it's hard to be sure, for instance my symptoms of appendicitis were not the usual ones, made life difficult for a time.
My liver/gall-bladder etc. are fine.Never had an issue with that area.
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No, I'm not in minority, as I do better with raw animal protein and fat, but on the other hand I do digest cooked ones quite well, without any stomach aches; but I definitely do better with low-carb than high-carb, and, as I see, most of the people on this forum made major improvements after switching even to cooked low-carb
I've joined many RVAF forums in the past and can tell you that most reported only very slight improvement to their health-problems while on cooked low-carb diets, like palaeo, before eventually trying raw. That's the unfortunate essential characteristic of a raw-animal-and-vegetable-food diet - people only try it as an absolute last resort after trying(and failing) with all other diet-combinations, raw or cooked. Still, it does mean that once they get even bigger improvements to their health, that they're more likely to stick with it in the long-term.
*One thing I always remember is being told by a poster who frequently visits people at gatherings for various diets, especially raw-animal-food-related. He told members that the Instincto(high-raw-plant-food-consumers) were actually the healthiest of those he visited.So, I'm extremely dubious about high-carb being an issue for most people.
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It's not cold processed. I have called the processing company. they won't tell me what temps it has seen, but will tell you heat has been used.
That's not good! Aiieee! I'd always thought, previously, that Dr Mercola-recommended products of this sort were A-OK.
If it made you feel good, maybe it's not as bad as all that...it's only a spoon or so of oil right?
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That's not good! Aiieee! I'd always thought, previously, that Dr Mercola-recommended products of this sort were A-OK.
Oils/fats go off very quickly unless rendered. All these VCO'c that last more than a day must be heated.
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Oils/fats go off very quickly unless rendered. All these VCO'c that last more than a day must be heated.
The Blue Ice cod liver oil I get is definitely 100% raw(no additional anti-oxidants). It used to have an antioxidant or two(artificial vitamin E and rosemary extract, I think), but pressure from the raw food community forced them to abandon those preservatives. Because the cod-liver oil is fermented, its shelf-life is greatly enhanced, anyway.
You see, this is the sort of thing I was going on about, re creating a RVAF community. If we can become big enough to persuade farmers and companies to start some more raw-friendly practices, we all benefit.
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If it made you feel good, maybe it's not as bad as all that...it's only a spoon or so of oil right?
Well, I did sometimes get a vague placebo-like effect from taking (processed)supplements pre-raw diet, but this effect is much bigger than those sensations and lasts longer. I suspect they wouldn't heat it too much. I'll have to check, myself, if I have the time. Anyway, I can always fall back on the raw cod liver oil.
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By the way, I should mention that, while I do eat lots of raw oysters(20 large ones every 2 weeks) and raw mussels(when in season), they are a nightmare to deal with. You need an oyster-knife for the raw oysters and a metal walnut-cracker for the raw mussels and it's incredibly easy to cut yourself if you slip the knife or fingers on the shell. I've just opened up my left hand(fortunately not deep enough for any significant blood) as I was opening a raw oyster, and have tiny minor cuts elsewhere on the hands. It doesn't bother me much, personally, but I can imagine it could be a nuisance for others.
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The krill-oil does state "cold-extraction" so it sounds as though, if any heat is applied, that the krill oil would still be heated below 40 degrees celsius. On the other hand, I don't like the mention of the lack of "fishy after-taste" as it sounds as though they must process it via heat or whatever.
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By definition, most people turn to raw diets precisely because they do worse on cooked foods than on raw, so you're in a minority. I'll accept a sizeable proportion of raw, zero-carbers given the palaeo nature of this forum, but , taking all raw diets into account(the ones with raw animal foods in them), you'll find, inevitably, that most do OK or fine on raw carbs(if not eaten in truly vast amounts) but do much worse on cooked foods.
Since most of the raw forums are plant-oriented (and I understand that you came from a plant-oriented raw diet, yes?) and since some members also have philosophical reasons for eating mostly or all plants, of course they're going to say bad things about cooked animal foods.
I traversed many low-carb forums and the majority of the people in those forums do better on lightly cooked meats than on raw plant foods, so I'm not so sure who's in the minority and don't really care that much, as the only person's experience that directly affects me is my own. Other people's experiences can provide clues, but the real nitty gritty comes in putting it to the test on myself. That's why I don't suggest you eat pure ZC, because you did not do well on that. I technically don't even do pure ZC myself, since there are some carbs in liver, mussels, etc. (which is why I now term my diet a carnivorous one, to reduce confusion).
Perhaps we should focus less on who's in the minority and more on sharing experience and new information?
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Since most of the raw forums are plant-oriented (and I understand that you came from a plant-oriented raw diet, yes?) and since some members also have philosophical reasons for eating mostly or all plants, of course they're going to say bad things about cooked animal foods.
I was specifically referring to raw animal and vegetable diets, not ALL raw diets, so my remark was directly appropriate - most people on RVAF diets(such as the meat-heavy Primal Diet) find cooked foods to be very harmful and only initially turn to raw animal foods as an absolute last resort because they developed serious health-problems on diets full of cooked animal foods(however lightly cooked) and only going raw solved their health problems fully. You'll find, again and again, that almost all RVAFers turn to raw animal food diets solely out of health-reasons, not because they have a specific prejudice in favour of raw plant foods(especially since eating raw meat causes social restrictions). They couldn't care less about animal or plant foods they just do what works re getting rid of cancer or whatever. By contrast, when one looks at the accounts of cooked low-carb-dieters, the main motivation isn't so much health-related but primarily due to a desire to lose weight.
As regards my former Raw Vegan and Fruitarian experiences, they were actually pretty bad so you can't possibly claim I have any special plant-based prejudice therefrom. Indeed, until I became a rawpalaeodieter, I had a strong bias in favour of cooked palaeolithic diets partly because I previously had an absurd romantic notion re the ideal ancestral diet(and no other diet was related to human evolution) and partly because, although I did better on raw vegan diets due to not getting my usual stomach-aches after eating any cooked animal foods, I still was deeply concerned/phobic re getting possible long-term nutritional deficiencies so that I forcibly became a fanatic for supplements to correct any such deficiency. In the end, the only reason why I abandoned the notion of lightly-cooked palaeo/grassfed meats as being ideal for me was because of the health-problems I got from eating such fare, so that I was forced to go raw vegan, initially, despite my misgivings re PETA etc etc.
There is another reason, though, why I am convinced of the great harm of cooked animal foods as opposed to raw carbs:- when one looks at the general health-descriptions of the various Dr.Price-inspired native tribes, one finds that their general health isn't considerably different from each other(and hardly spectacular when one takes exercise/caloric restriction etc. into account), despite the fact that some ate much higher levels of carbs than others. So, my reading is that human health must have been even higher in pre-advent-of-fire days, and that the issue of raw is the most important factor.
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...By contrast, when one looks at the accounts of cooked low-carb-dieters, the main motivation isn't so much health-related but primarily due to a desire to lose weight.
Yes, and I think that's one reason why some end up making the mistake of sticking with dairy and cooked foods, because they lose some weight on it and just assume it's healthy because of that.
There are also many exceptions to doing LC to lose weight, such as Taubes, Ray Audette, Lex, Vonderplanitz (who went raw first and then VLC and was actually trying to gain weight) and myself.
As regards my former Raw Vegan and Fruitarian experiences, they were actually pretty bad so you can't possibly claim I have any special plant-based prejudice therefrom.
I didn't mean you, I meant the forums you were referring to--but you explained that you specifically meant the ones that eat flesh--thanks for that clarification.
There is another reason, though, why I am convinced of the great harm of cooked animal foods as opposed to raw carbs:- when one looks at the general health-descriptions of the various Dr.Price-inspired native tribes, one finds that their general health isn't considerably different from each other(and hardly spectacular when one takes exercise/caloric rerstriction etc. into account), despite the fact that some ate much higher levels of carbs than others. So, my reading is that human health must have been even higher in pre-advent-of-fire days, and that the issue of raw is the most important factor.
Interesting hypothesis. So you think that even the %30 or less of the Inuit diet that was allegedly cooked by the Inuit during the last century is probably enough to seriously affect their health? At what % of cooking do you think the harm becomes substantial?
If your hypothesis is correct, then we should see serious deleterious changes in human health and morphology begin in the paleoanthropological record around when cooking began, and the decline should be much more drastic than that of the onset of the neolithic, yes? Have you searched for the evidence yet?
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There are also many exceptions to doing LC to lose weight, such as Taubes, Ray Audette, Lex, Vonderplanitz (who went raw first and then VLC and was actually trying to gain weight) and myself.
I don't think one can cite Aajonus as LC. He advocates a diet of 5% raw fruit and 25% raw vegetable juices(oh, and he also recommends a few raw nuts and lots and lots of raw honey as well).
Interesting hypothesis. So you think that even the %30 or less of the Inuit diet that was allegedly cooked by the Inuit during the last century is probably enough to seriously affect their health? At what % of cooking do you think the harm becomes substantial?
If your hypothesis is correct, then we should see serious deleterious changes in human health and morphology begin in the paleoanthropological record around when cooking began, and the decline should be much more drastic than that of the onset of the neolithic, yes? Have you searched for the evidence yet?
Where did you get the 30% cooked figure for the Inuit? I'm curious as I never once read a specifically mentioned figure, just an assertion that the Inuit diet was partially raw(I assumed 50% raw/50% cooked, or maybe a little less raw).
Re percentage of cooking:-I'd agree that 30% of the diet cooked would not be healthy but it's difficult to say as to what the minimum percentage is re serious harm. I mean, AGEs in the body in any amount, however small, cause a slight amount of damage re inflammation, however tiny. The body seems to have an ability to deal with the tiny, natural traces of AGEs in the body, but there's no evidence, as yet, to show that the human body can handle significantly higher amounts.
Re studies done on harm done by cooking:- There is, unsurprising little data on the subject. Indeed Wrangham and a very few other scientists have been desperately trying to prove the opposite. But there is 1 study which shows at least a sign of the overall damage. Here's the study showing that human teeth were ruined by cooking(with the assertion that eventually we'll be reduced to drinking from straws or some such in a hundred thousand years or whatever):-
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7035-human-dental-chaos-linked-to-evolution-of-cooking.html
It's interesting to note in the article that wild animals don't have the malocclusion we (and our Palaeo) ancestors had. It also shows that cooking, over time, can impact on us DNA-wise(for example , AGEs are known to damage DNA). There are also links made between heterocyclic amines(present in smoke and cooked foods) and schizophrenia, among other mental illnesses such as Alzheimer's etc.(eg:-
http://journals.lww.com/hnpjournal/Abstract/1995/01000/Schizophrenia,_smoking,_and_smog.11.aspx
)
There is a claim re cooked foods among the raw crowd, that most of the damage from cooking comes during ones' lifetime such as the notion that we have a supply of enzymes until c.27, after which we start getting issues with digestion if we go on with a cooked diet; and, of course, the build up of AGEs only starts from conception, so that most of the damage re cooking comes usually in later years after a buildup of AGEs(though, as I said, I strongly suspect that the seemingly high rate of birth defects in humans may well be due to cooked food consumption).
By the way, it seems you were right re the wild game animals hunted in mid-palaeolithic era, judging from GS's article. Interesting.
* Another thing - you did relatively recently quote an assertion by Barry Groves a while back re an increase in plant-foods c.30,000 years ago. While I seriously doubt Barry re that claim, I suddenly recalled another article re current scientific evidence clearly indicating a substantial increase in human longevity at around that time:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040706082820.htm
*1 other thing. I have noted that Eskimos have the largest brains/skulls of all humans. While their all-meat diet has been cited, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that their (until recent) significant quantities of raw meats had more to do with this effect.
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There is a claim re cooked foods among the raw crowd, that most of the damage from cooking comes during ones' lifetime such as the notion that we have a supply of enzymes until c.27, after which we start getting issues with digestion if we go on with a cooked diet; and, of course, the build up of AGEs only starts from conception, so that most of the damage re cooking comes usually in later years after a buildup of AGEs(though, as I said, I strongly suspect that the seemingly high rate of birth defects in humans may well be due to cooked food consumption).
I'm not aware of a date when buildup of AGEs starts, but from the description of the process, which requires the absence of an enzyme, it would be sometime after the body stops making all the enzymes needed.
This time would be at the end of physical growth, usually dated around 30.
The high rate of birth defects in humans would the be due to the recent fashion of late marriage, as old mothers are known to be at greater risk of producing defective babies. Lack of enzymes, again due to both the body not making all of them and absence in the (cooked) diet.
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I'm not aware of a date when buildup of AGEs starts, but from the description of the process, which requires the absence of an enzyme, it would be sometime after the body stops making all the enzymes needed.
This time would be at the end of physical growth, usually dated around 30.
The high rate of birth defects in humans would the be due to the recent fashion of late marriage, as old mothers are known to be at greater risk of producing defective babies. Lack of enzymes, again due to both the body not making all of them and absence in the (cooked) diet.
AGEs do NOT require the presence or absence of an enzyme to start damaging the body. This is scientific fact. All one needs is protein and then either carbohydrates or fats. Either will do to start AGE-production.
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AGEs do NOT require an enzyme to start damaging the body.
Correct - it's the lack of the enzyme that is the problem.
When the needed enzyme is present, the sugar and protein combine in a harmless way.
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I was talking about his early days before he added vegetable juice. But even with his vegetable juice, his % of total calories comes out to 11.2% or less of calories, depending on how many calories he eats a day, based on this interview of him
Strictly speaking, it's irrelevant what Aajonus claims as his Primal Diet is 30% raw carbs(not counting raw nuts and raw honey). He recommends a Primal Diet which is very high in raw carbs. Besides, I tend to doubt anything he claims, given that he makes such outrageous statements every so often.
So what is 'low-carb'?
SAD = 49-55% of total calories
Low carb
The Zone low carb diet = 40% of total calories (about 200 grams of carbs)
I'm surprised that this Zone diet can be called low-carb. The usual interpretation is that anything in the 30s or above is "high", not "low". And VLC is anywhere between 0-5 %.
Yes, I know, which is why you'll have a hard time proving it to anyone.
There's already plenty of scientific evidence backing the notion that coooked foods are harmful to human health. The evolution issue will require further scientific research and improved technology, though it's heartening that there are already some studies done on the link between cooked food and the rise of schizophrenia in human evolution etc.. Mind you, it's taken many decades for scientists to work out that dairy is harmful to human health and the reasons why, so give it another 50 to 100 years before we get more data on this.
Although nonhuman primates that eat lots of raw fruits do get significant rates of caries, as was reported multiple times in this forum. In contrast, the caries rates among tarsiers, wolves and big cats is much lower.
Dental caries is quite a different thing from malocclusion and while the former may be carb-related, the latter is clearly cooking-related.
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Perhaps, but that's also when brain size started shrinking. Longevity is one of the most misleading of health metrics, in my view, and is often pointed to by people promoting awful diets, like vegetarians, raw vegans, the USDA food pyramid, etc. If someone promotes their diet based on longevity, you can almost be assured it is sub-optimal. These folks tend to try to have their cake and eat it too: claiming that longevity is a sign of good health, but that the chronic diseases that accompany it on a modern diet should be ignored. So unless we think that smaller-brained elderly people riddled with chronic disease are healthier than people with bigger brains and denser bones who were free of these diseases even past the age of 60, then we have to look at 30k ybp as a time of significant decline in morphology, increased neoteny, and worsening health, and all these changes accelerated rapidly with the dawn of agriculture about 10k ybp.
Well, a lot of people view increased neoteny as a good sign indicating an increased rate of evolution(re bigger brains to body ratio like infants have etc.) As regards the brain-decline it occurred somewhat earlier , c.35,000 years ago, not 30,000 years ago, and it was only -3% then, anyway, by comparison to the -8% found in the Neolithic era. Plus, I have yet to come across any sizeable claims(other than Groves) by palaeoanthropologists etc. claiming a drop in human health before the Mesolithic era.
As regards the longevity issue, the sudden rise in longevity 30,000 years ago wasn't just a question of living longer, but of including a teenaged- phase(which other primates don't have), so it was a key phase in evolution and somewhat unlikely to have been harmful.Indeed, scientists view it as a key factor behind ensuing Neolithic civilisation etc.
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Correct - it's the lack of the enzyme that is the problem.
When the needed enzyme is present, the sugar and protein combine in a harmless way.
This is false. AGEs are harmful regardless of whether enzymes are present or not. Anyway, the whole point is that cooked foods not only contain toxic AGEs but also have their enzymes destroyed as a result of cooking.
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Strictly speaking, it's irrelevant what Aajonus claims as his Primal Diet is 30% raw carbs(not counting raw nuts and raw honey). He recommends a Primal Diet which is very high in raw carbs. Besides, I tend to doubt anything he claims, given that he makes such outrageous statements every so often.
I'm surprised that this Zone diet can be called low-carb. The usual interpretation is that anything in the 30s or above is "high", not "low". And VLC is anywhere between 0-5 %.
There's already plenty of scientific evidence backing the notion that cooked foods are harmful to human health. The evolution issue will require further scientific research and improved technology, though it's heartening that there are already some studies done on the link between cooked food and the rise of schizophrenia in human evolution and the collapse in dental health as well . Mind you, it's taken many decades for scientists to work out that dairy is harmful to human health and the reasons why, so give it another 50 to 100 years before we get more data on this.
Dental caries is quite a different thing from malocclusion and while the former may be carb-related, the latter is clearly cooking-related.
Well, a lot of people view increased neoteny as a good sign indicating an increased rate of evolution(re bigger brains to body ratio like infants have etc.) As regards the brain-decline it occurred somewhat earlier , c.35,000 years ago, not 30,000 years ago, and it was only -3% then, anyway, by comparison to the -8% found in the Neolithic era. Plus, I have yet to come across any sizeable claims(other than Groves) by palaeoanthropologists etc. claiming a drop in human health before the Mesolithic era.
As regards the longevity issue, the sudden rise in longevity 30,000 years ago wasn't just a question of living longer, but of including a teenaged- phase(which other primates don't have), so it was a key phase in evolution and somewhat unlikely to have been harmful.Indeed, scientists view it as a key factor behind ensuing Neolithic civilisation etc.
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Sorry, Palaeophil, I was trying to modify your previous post because when I clicked the quote button it would only accept part of your answer(due to your entire post being quoted etc.) Anyway, I then started making my full post, and without thinking I clicked the submit button. I should, of course have cut and pasted it into my next answer. Really sorry about that.
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I'm surprised that this Zone diet can be called low-carb. The usual interpretation is that anything in the 30s or above is "high", not "low". And VLC is anywhere between 0-5 %.
Yeah, it is a bit surprising, but anything below the 49-55% levels of carbs in the SAD tends to get called a low-carb diet, which is why the Zone diet tends to get put in that category. I think Sears claims it's LC too, but I could be wrong on that. For me, Vonderplanitz is not all that LC, but to most people he is extremely so. So it all depends on one's perspective.
There's already plenty of scientific evidence backing the notion that coooked foods are harmful to human health. The evolution issue will require further scientific research and improved technology, though it's heartening that there are already some studies done on the link between cooked food and the rise of schizophrenia in human evolution and the collapse in dental health as well . Mind you, it's taken many decades for scientists to work out that dairy is harmful to human health and the reasons why, so give it another 50 to 100 years before we get more data on this.
Yes, I agree that there is a need for MASSIVE amounts of more research. I'm happy to find another science lover.
Dental caries is quite a different thing from malocclusion and while the former may be carb-related, the latter is clearly cooking-related.
So cooking contributes to malocclusion, but not caries? If we could find a mechanism behind that it might reveal some interesting info, but raw meats seem to actually CLEAN my teeth, whereas cooked meats seem basically neutral to dental cleanliness. So I still suspect that raw meats help with caries as well as occlusion and that carbs (especially grains) contribute to both caries and malocclusion (Weston Price's evidence certainly suggests that).
Well, a lot of people view increased neoteny as a good sign indicating an increased rate of evolution(re bigger brains to body ratio like infants have etc.)
Sorry, but if they think that neoteny is purely good, then they're either ignorant or nuts. Bigger brains is not a sign of neoteny. Show me where anyone says that it is, please. Neoteny means youthful traits in adults. Brains are bigger in adults than youths, so it makes no sense to call that neoteny. Bigger brains is the opposite of neoteny.
As regards the brain-decline it occurred somewhat earlier , c.35,000 years ago, not 30,000 years ago,
Good grief, I was rounding. Now you're just picking nits.
and it was only -3% then, anyway, by comparison to the -8% found in the Neolithic era.
Is this supposed to be a disagreement with me? I said that the difference became much more pronounced beginning with the Neolithic, so we agree on this. What say let's not pick fights where we agree?
Plus, I have yet to come across any sizeable claims(other than Groves) by palaeoanthropologists etc. claiming a drop in human health before the Mesolithic era.
That's a good point. We certainly need more data. Right now the focus is on the Neolithic transition around 9-12 thousand years ago. We need more data on the Cro-Magnon transition around 30-35k years ago.
As regards the longevity issue, the sudden rise in longevity 30,000 years ago wasn't just a question of living longer, but of including a teenaged- phase(which other primates don't have), so it was a key phase in evolution and somewhat unlikely to have been harmful.Indeed, scientists view it as a key factor behind ensuing Neolithic civilisation etc.
As I've stated before, I basically agree with Jared Diamond that the Neolithic adoption of monoagriculture was likely the greatest catastrophe in human history. Maybe it's a bit hyperbolic, but it rings true for me. So trying to convince me that something is good because it resulted in the Neolithic age is like bashing me on the head with a 2x4 and expecting me to like it.
Sorry, Palaeophil, I was trying to modify your previous post because when I clicked the quote button it would only accept part of your answer(due to your entire post being quoted etc.) Anyway, I then started making my full post, and without thinking I clicked the submit button. I should, of course have cut and pasted it into my next answer. Really sorry about that.
No prob. I tend to get rather sloppy with quotes. My bad.
And thanks for taking the time to respond to my posts. I enjoy scientific debate and exploration to an unnatural degree.
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So cooking contributes to malocclusion, but not caries? If we could find a mechanism behind that it might reveal some interesting info, but raw meats seem to actually CLEAN my teeth, whereas cooked meats seem basically neutral to dental cleanliness. So I still suspect that raw meats help with caries as well as occlusion and that carbs (especially grains) contribute to both caries and malocclusion (Weston Price's evidence certainly suggests that).
As far as I'm aware, Dr Price only focused on dental caries, not malocclusion. And the fact that malocclusion existed in (post-cooking) hominids in the Palaeolithic, but does not exist in wild animals is clearly strongly indicative.Another consideration, as shown in the article, is that eating cooked foods, which are softer, leads, on a genetic level, to smaller jaws(but still the same number of teeth) as larger jaws are no longer as needed. So, cooked food either damages teeth over a long period re malocclusion and/or does so via genetics(ie smaller jaws).
Sorry, but if they think that neoteny is purely good, then they're either ignorant or nuts. Bigger brains is not a sign of neoteny. Show me where anyone says that it is, please. Neoteny means youthful traits in adults. Brains are bigger in adults than youths, so it makes no sense to call that neoteny. Bigger brains is the opposite of neoteny.
I'm afraid you're dead wrong re this. Neoteny is indeed referring to youthful traits, but also on a ratio-basis by comparison to overall body-size. So, for example, human babies have a much bigger brain to body size RATIO than adult humans(or other animals) do, so that a bigger brain to body size ratio for an adult is indeed a neotenous trait. Here's a couple of links:-
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/5743.full
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=being-more-infantile
Good grief, I was rounding. Now you're just picking nits.
"Rounding" by as much as 5,000 years(in the more recent Upper Palaeolithic era, no less) is rather extreme, by any standards, LOL! Especially when I've never heard of this supposed carb-increase in diet c.30,000 years ago(except Barry Groves who is somewhat unreliable, to say the least). Now if Barry had made a claim of 20,000 years(for some not all humans), he would at least have a point, otherwise not.Either way, the 5,000 year-difference between a supposed change in diet and a decrease in human brain-size means there is no real link.
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As far as I'm aware, Dr Price only focused on dental caries, not malocclusion.
He examined both. Just look at the photos he took and you'll see plenty of examples of malocclusion on modern diets vs. perfectly straight teeth on traditional diets within the same ethnic groups.
And the fact that malocclusion existed in (post-cooking) hominids in the Palaeolithic, but does not exist in wild animals is clearly strongly indicative.
Thanks for this info. That is suggestive evidence, although there are other possible explanations in addition to, or instead of cooking (though I suspect that cooking is part of the equation): "human hybridization under civilized systems of mating might have adverse effects on occlusion"--in other words, neoteny through sexual selection [source: Malocclusion and civilization (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7G77-4BT35J1-N7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1001684462&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5b3ba219af62a12d5176c3eaac2fe04a)], which some of your sources also point to as a factor in brain development.
Well, a lot of people view increased neoteny as a good sign indicating an increased rate of evolution(re bigger brains to body ratio like infants have etc.)
Sorry, but if they think that neoteny is purely good, then they're either ignorant or nuts. Bigger brains is not a sign of neoteny. ....
I'm afraid you're dead wrong re this. Neoteny is indeed referring to youthful traits, but also on a ratio-basis by comparison to overall body-size. So, for example, human babies have a much bigger brain to body size RATIO than adult humans(or other animals) do, so that a bigger brain to body size ratio for an adult is indeed a neotenous trait. Here's a couple of links:-
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/5743.full
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=being-more-infantile
OK, I understand now where you're coming from on the ratio-basis (thanks for the references), and I'll grant that it makes some superficial sense given that smaller dog breeds apparently tend to be more intelligent, but it still doesn't explain everything, given that domesticated (neotenized) dogs have smaller brains than wild dogs and wolves and human neoteny accelerated during the last approx. 35k years at the same time that absolute brain size decreased and the brain/body ratio did not increase (see "The Relationship of Dietary Quality and Gut Efficiency to Brain Size," from "Comparative Anatomy and Physiology Brought Up to Date, Are Humans Natural Frugivores/Vegetarians, or Omnivores/Faunivores?" http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-4b.shtml). We are more neotenized now (less hair, softer and finer hair, less muscle, finer bones, smaller jaws, flatter faces, more childlike features, longer lactose persistence, longer persistance of lighter-colored eyes such as blue eyes, etc.) than at any time in human history, yet our brains are smaller than Cro Magnon's and proportionately no larger. On my more important and broader initial point, that neoteny is not a purely "good sign," increased brain size is the only improvement you've pointed to, whereas less hair, smaller jaws, less muscle, and finer bones could be seen as negative, so I remain unconvinced of the proposition that neoteny is only "a good sign."
"since neoteny means an extended childhood, you have this greater chance for the brain to develop” --http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=being-more-infantile
Childhood is more extended now than at any point in human history, yet brain size is not rapidly increasing in absolute terms and not dramatically in proportionate terms.
Attributing neoteny solely to selection of behavioral traits and childhood extension and disregarding diet would ignore the fact that rewilding the diet results in reversal of some neotenized traits in humans (and without any reports of reduction in brain size). For example, the Weston Price Foundation has documented dramatic reverals of neoteny in the offspring of highly neotenized adults within a single generation (and on a personal note, when I switched to a Paleo diet, hair started growing on my chest). The children fed more traditional diets than their parents experience less malocclusion, broader and flatter palates, broader jaws and faces, etc. Jared Diamond has even argued in Guns, Germs and Steel that New Guinea hunter gatherers are "genetically superior" in "mental ability" to modern folk. It is a controversial hypothesis, in part because it could be misused to support misguided racist ideology, but given the effects of modern foods on the brain and the benefits on the brain of rewilding the diet (such as elimination of "brain fog"), it is plausible.
"Rounding" by as much as 5,000 years(in the more recent Upper Palaeolithic era, no less) is rather extreme, by any standards, LOL! Especially when I've never heard of this supposed carb-increase in diet c.30,000 years ago(except Barry Groves who is somewhat unreliable, to say the least). Now if Barry had made a claim of 20,000 years(for some not all humans), he would at least have a point, otherwise not.Either way, the 5,000 year-difference between a supposed change in diet and a decrease in human brain-size means there is no real link.
5000 years of rounding in the 2.5 million plus years of human history is the mere blink of an eye. I already granted you the 35k ybp date for approximate initiation of brain size decline, so let's not beat a dead horse over such details unless there is a critical reason for doing so. Are you arguing that brain size started declining exactly 35k years ago, whereas plant foods were not a significant part of human diets until at least 30k years ago, therefore making a connection impossible? What change do you posit suddenly occurred 35k years ago that accounts for decreasing brain size since that time and what reason for the critical certainty regarding that precise millenium?
My main sources were Clive Gamble (The Paleolithic Societies of Europe) and Ward Nicholson ("Longevity & health in ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic peoples: Not what you may have been told," http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml). I didn't know that Groves also connects the decline in brain size to diet, but thanks for providing another confirming reference. Gamble calls the Middle Paleolithic period the "Carnivore Guild," claiming that human carnivory reached its peak during this period. He roughly estimates this period to have covered around 300,000 to 30,000 years ago (other scientists use different ranges, such as 200,000 to 40,000 years ago, illustrating the rough nature of naming such periods). Part of the reason these figures are rough is that changes occurred in different parts of Europe at different times. To claim that every area of Europe changed dramatically in exactly the same millenium 35k years ago would not be taken seriously by paleoanthropologists, so I'm surprised that you seem to be suggesting that. Please clarify.
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He examined both. Just look at the photos he took and you'll see plenty of examples of malocclusion on modern diets vs. perfectly straight teeth on traditional diets within the same ethnic groups.
I strongly suspect Dr Price chose to photograph only those natives who fitted in with his notion of healthy teeth and diet. Any natives with missing teeth etc. were undoubtedly just quietly ignored. And, like I said, malocclusion is also a feature of smaller human jaws vis-a-vis the number of human teeth, so cooking certainly did harm human jaws.
OK, I understand now where you're coming from on the ratio-basis (thanks for the references), and I'll grant that it makes some superficial sense given that smaller dog breeds apparently tend to be more intelligent, but it still doesn't explain everything, given that domesticated (neotenized) dogs have smaller brains than wild dogs and wolves and human neoteny accelerated during the last approx. 35k years at the same time that absolute brain size decreased and the brain/body ratio did not increase
I rather doubt that smaller dogs are more intelligent. I've lived for years around people with dogs of all kinds, and the stupidest ones tended to be the most artificially-bred like boxers, and certainly the really tiny dogs like chihuahuas were at or very near the bottom of the IQ scale, for sure. On the other hand, I was deeply impressed by the IQ of Alaskan Malamutes/Caucasian Shepherd dog/St Bernards etc. which are very large dogs.
We are more neotenized now (less hair, softer and finer hair, less muscle, finer bones, smaller jaws, flatter faces, more childlike features, longer lactose persistence, longer persistance of lighter-colored eyes such as blue eyes, etc.) than at any time in human history, yet our brains are smaller than Cro Magnon's and proportionately no larger.
On my more important and broader initial point, that neoteny is not a purely "good sign," increased brain size is the only improvement you've pointed to, whereas less hair, smaller jaws, less muscle, and finer bones could be seen as negative, so I remain unconvinced of the proposition that neoteny is only "a good sign."
Weaker muscles/bones meant greater dependence on technology(eg:- flints/spears) for hunting etc. which most certainly helped lead to human civilisation, later on. Plus, I already mentioned the extended childhood as a benefit(re providing grandparents to care for offspring. Less hair means better adaptation to water re swimming.
Childhood is more extended now than at any point in human history, yet brain size is not rapidly increasing in either absolute or proportionate terms.
I would disagree. It's already well-known that human births are much more difficult than animal births given the large skulls of human infants passing through the birth-canal. So, it is extremely unlikely that human brains could develop past a certain point(the Cro-Magnon) without problems occurring(ie gigantic head on spindly body like those mutants featured in 1950s science fiction books). So, instead of brain-size being a factor, people are being educated for longer which compensates for the lack of increase in the former. Plus, I've heard vaguely of the issue of "sulsification", which means that the brain can have more surface-area due to fissuring, and various smaller areas of the brain(frontal lobes) might be more concentrated/enlarged in Neolithic man despite smaller overall brain-size, say, so that brain-size isn't necessarily the only factor - if it were the sole factor, presumably, the Inuit would be beating everyone else re Nobel Prizes/Mensa or whatever.
Attributing neoteny solely to selection of behavioral traits and childhood extension and disregarding diet would ignore the fact that rewilding the diet results in reversal of some neotenized traits in humans (and without any reports of reduction in brain size). For example, the Weston Price Foundation has documented dramatic reverals of neoteny in the offspring of highly neotenized adults within a single generation (and on a personal note, when I switched to a Paleo diet, hair started growing on my chest). The children fed more traditional diets than their parents experience less malocclusion, broader and flatter palates, broader jaws and faces, etc. Jared Diamond has even argued in Guns, Germs and Steel that New Guinea hunter gatherers are "genetically superior" in "mental ability" to modern folk. It is a controversial hypothesis, in part because it could be misused to support misguided racist ideology, but given the effects of modern foods on the brain and the benefits on the brain of rewilding the diet (such as elimination of "brain fog"), it is plausible.
I seriously doubt most of Weston-Price's claims. He was a total fraud who cherry-picked his data to make sure no "inconvenient" statistics entered into his report. And, I also have good reason for seriously doubting the influence of diet on the brain. For one thing, many animals have developed larger brains(IQ not just brain-size) via evolution without ever requiring a meat-based diet. A far more likely explanation is the idea that tool-use gradually expanded the size of the hominid brain over time. But there are so many theories re this issue.
Are you arguing that brain size started declining precipitously exactly 35k years ago, whereas plant foods were not a significant part of human diets until at least 30k years ago, therefore making a connection impossible? What change do you posit suddenly occurred 35k years ago that accounts for decreasing brain size since that time and what reason for the critical certainty regarding that precise millenium?
First of all, it's pretty clear that Barry Groves just arbitrarily picked that 30,000 figure out of thin air. So far, there is no reason to assume that plant-eating suddenly expanded around that time, given the available evidence.Secondly, there is far more scientific scrutiny of the Upper Palaeolithic period(well up to 40,000 years), re more precise dating techniques etc., than there is of earlier periods, so that being 5,000 years out is a bit much(especially when one considers that a great deal more happened to mankind in the last 60,000 years than in previous millenia).
There are plenty of other explanations. One could be that humans were no longer subject to natural selection by that stage, thus not being selected by nature for higher IQ. Another explanation I gave earlier is that some areas(eg:- frontal lobe) may have expanded while other areas contracted much more, being less "essential". Also, the very minor -3% figure is substantially less than the -8% figure so it is much more likely to be due to non-dietary factors than the larger -8% figure.
To claim that every area of Europe changed dramatically in exactly the same millenium 35k years ago would not be taken seriously by paleoanthropologists, so I'm surprised that you seem to be suggesting that. Please clarify.
I'm perfectly well aware that there are different rates of transition. For example, it's known that many tribes in Northern Europe didn't even switch to Neolithic diets until many thousands of years into the Neolithic era. The point is, though, that the main transition to plant-foods only started c.20,000 years ago when the Mesolithic era started in the Middle-East. Granted, it took even longer for plant-foods to be introduced into other regions. But the point is that 30,000(or 40,000 or further) years for plant-foods is way too much, given the scientific data.
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Finally managed to get a great source of suet, marrow and tongue(despite being told by the previous stall-holder that they didn't have any such items). Thank God.
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I would hardly call Weston Price a 'total fraud'! You've mentioned before that he cherry picked the good looking ones, I don't think they are particularly good looking.
I also think that plant based carb diets make us think too much/ smarter. Narrow palates amp up our nervous system, can't relax, always thinking (prone to ADHD) and the plant carbs fuel the brain and set us into overdrive.
I mentined this before but got cut down pretty quickly! Ha
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I would hardly call Weston Price a 'total fraud'! You've mentioned before that he cherry picked the good looking ones, I don't think they are particularly good looking.
I think they were the best of a bad lot re appearance, with all the others he met being decidedly ill-looking, missing teeth etc. , much as one would expect given the harsh life they led. But there are other concerns such as the fact that Weston Price arbitrarily claimed that all the various tribes were uniformly healthy even when they all had widely different diets, indicating widely different levels of health - that can only mean he either deliberately fudged the evidence or that he was so incompetent or blinded by bias that he chose to ignore any data that he found contradicted his theories.
I also think that plant based carb diets make us think too much/ smarter. Narrow palates amp up our nervous system, can't relax, always thinking (prone to ADHD) and the plant carbs fuel the brain and set us into overdrive.
I mentined this before but got cut down pretty quickly! Ha
Hnmm, that's at least a bit more original than the notion that carnivores are supposedly superior to other humans re hunting instincts or whatever. I'm amused that you should consider that carbs make one think too much - well, perhaps the meat-DHA/brain theory is wrong and eating carbs caused our ancestors' brains to grow!
What I find interesting is that it's cooked foods that are increasingly being linked to depression, schizophrenia, alzheimer's and other mental issues. This is because cooking creates opioids which act on the brain like drugs, causing all sorts of problems re mood etc.
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By the way, 1 of the many reasons why I go on about the perils of eating cooked meats is because I endured agonisingly painful stomach-aches while eating cooked animal foods while pre-rawpalaeodiet. These pains disappeared as soon as I turned to eating raw meats, instead. Now I'd had adrenal burnout at the time, and I found out later adrenal burnout sufferers usually eventually go 100% (cooked)vegan as they steadily lose their ability to eat(cooked) animal foods. So, the fact that just switching to 100% raw meant that those pains disappeared forever, means that eating cooked animal food puts an extra stress on the adrenals - now this may not initially matter to people without the adrenal-related issues I had pre-rawpalaeo, but, over the long-term, it sure does matter as the biggest problems for old people on cooked diets are the serious glandular-related health-problems they develop over the decades after c.40, ruining their quality of life. It seems Aajonus was quite right to claim that cooked foods damage the entire glandular system over time.
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I think they were the best of a bad lot re appearance, with all the others he met being decidedly ill-looking, missing teeth etc. , much as one would expect given the harsh life they led. But there are other concerns such as the fact that Weston Price arbitrarily claimed that all the various tribes were uniformly healthy even when they all had widely different diets, indicating widely different levels of health - that can only mean he either deliberately fudged the evidence or that he was so incompetent or blinded by bias that he chose to ignore any data that he found contradicted his theories.
His photographic evidence clearly shows that his proposition is true, to wit: traditional diets result in superior dental health compared to a diet including bread and jam. High carb is bad.
He also mentions the reports of archaeologists which show the same thing. Irrefutable.
Harsh life
Does not look harsh; the mountain Swiss and South Pacific islanders were doing much better than their wretched descendants.
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Lots to reply to. Luckily I've already researched much of this stuff in the past and saved some of what I found. I shortened it some by not quoting Tyler much, though this risks some confusion.
Evidence for Increased Malocclusion from Modern Diets over Traditional Diets vs. No Counter-evidence Yet Offerred
Tyler, first you claimed that Price only focused on caries, now you admit he examined occlusion but dismiss his evidence on that. Given that I don't think raw dairy is healthful, I am also suspicious about some of Price's conclusions, but your dismissals without evidence are not of much value to me. To disprove Price, it should be a fairly simple matter of finding rates of malocclusion among hunter-gatherers and other traditional populations equal to those in modern populations. Has anyone done this?
As I pointed out, the WAPF also provides evidence of dramatic single-generation improvements in occlusion through change to more traditional diets (such as a comparison photo of mother and child). I can't find that evidence at present, so I hope you'll take my word for it at present that they presented it. I'm no fan of theirs, so I have no motivation to mislead about this. If you assume that evidence was also selectively chosen it should once again be a fairly simple matter for WAPF critics to show examples of children who were fed much more traditional diets yet fared no better with malocclusion, caries, etc. than their parents. Has anyone done this?
The WAPF also provides this: Some pesticides can also react with thyroid hormones and vitamin A receptors.[Rolland, RR. A review of chemically-induced alterations in thyroid and vitamin A status from field studies of wildlife and fish. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 2000, 36(4):15-35.] The disruption of fat-soluble activators and mineral metabolism would explain the bone deformities and malocclusions showing up in the wildlife in the Bitterroot Valley. http://westonaprice.org/envtoxins/clouds.html
And this at http://westonaprice.org/envtoxins/clouds_pictures.html: a photo of a filly foal, with "a 7 mm underbite at 2 days old when this photo was taken. The foal was given Calc. Phos. 6X and Bioplasma 2 times per day, morning and night, from birth" followed by a photo of the "Same filly foal at 13 days old, with perfect bite."
Do you have counter-evidence to this? As I've said before, unsupported claims made with certainty, based solely on one's say-so, raise my suspicion-meter more than anything. Even if we grant that Weston Price was a "total fraud" based solely on your say-so, then what about the similar findings of Jared Diamond, Tanchou, Stefansson, Washburn, Eaton, Cordain, Lindeberg, etc. re: the superior health and morphology of people eating more traditional/ancestral diets, including Cordain on malocclusion based on observational evidence and bones and fossils? Do you have evdince to show that all of it worthless?
Here are a couple of examples:
Sherwood Washburn in 1951 highlighted the importance of evolutionary processes and contexts rather than simply the results of these processes. Washburn discussed evolutionary changes in the lower jaw and suggested that understanding how the facial region has evolved in the human lineage and how it develops in the individual will “open the way to...interpretation of abnormalities abnormalities and malocclusion, and may lead to advances in genetics, anatomy, and medicine” (Washburn 1951, p. 304).
Source: Evolutionary Medicine, Wenda R. Trevathan, http://www.appalachianbioanth.org/trevathan.pdf
From The Paleo Diet, by Loren Cordain, pp. 42-43 (emphasis mine):
Hello Grains, Hello Health Problems
The archaeological record clearly shows that whenever and wherever ancient humans sowed [cereal grain] seeds (and replaced the old animal-dominated diets), part of the harvest included health problems. One physical ramification of the new diet was immediately obvious: Early farmers were markedly shorter than their ancestors. In Turkey and Greece, for example, preagricultural men stood 5 feet 9 inches tall [on average] and women 5 feet 5 inches. By 3000 B.C., the average man had shrunk to 5 feet 3 inches and the average woman to 5 feet. But getting shorter--not in itself a health problem--was the least of the changes in these early farmers. Studies of their bones and teeth have revealed that these people were basically a mess: They had more infectious diseases than their ancestors, more childhood mortality, and shorter life spans in general. They also had more osteoporosis, rickets, and other bone mineral disorders, thanks to the cereal-based diets. For the first time, humans were plagued with vitamin- and mineral-deficiency diseases--scurvy, beriberi, pellagra, vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, and iron-deficiency anemia. Instead of the well-formed, strong teeth their ancestors had, there were now cavities. Their jaws, which were formerly square and roomy, were suddenly too small for their teeth, which overlapped each other.
I already agreed with you that cooking is a factor in malocclusion. Based on the accumulating evidence, the types of foods eaten appear to be an even more important factor in malocclusion. Sorry, but I find your dismissals of such unconvincing.
Lack of Evidence for Neoteny Contributing to Increased Brain Size & Intelligence
Your suggestion that smaller dogs are less intelligent than larger dogs would appear to also argue against increases in brain size and intelligence from selected neoteny, as "toy" dogs like chihuahuas are reportedly the most severely neotenized of all breeds. As Budiansky reportedly argued: "Toy dogs often display an extreme level of neoteny, resembling not just infant, but fetal wolves." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny, sourcing Budiansky, Stephen, 1999, The Covenant of the Wild: Why animals chose domestication. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300079931), whereas the Alaskan breeds and large shepherd dogs are considered to be some of the least changed breeds from wild ancestors:
"The Canadian Eskimo Dog is an Arctic breed of dog (Canis lupus familiaris), which is often considered to be North America’s oldest and rarest remaining purebred indigenous domestic canine." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Eskimo_Dog)
Note here how early domesticated dogs, the ancestors of the big dogs that you claim are more intelligent, ate big game that may have provided generous sources of marrow, suet and back fat to their human owners and possibly also to the dogs:
"In shape, the Paleolithic dogs most resemble the Siberian husky, but in size, however, they were somewhat larger, probably comparable to large shepherd dogs," added Germonpré, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. .... Isotopic analysis of the animals' bones found that the earliest dogs consumed horse, musk ox and reindeer, but not fish or seafood. Since the Aurignacians are believed to have hunted big game and fished at different times of the year, the researchers think the dogs might have enjoyed meaty handouts during certain seasons." ("World's first dog lived 31,700 years ago, ate big: Discovery could push back the date for the earliest dog by 17,700 years, By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery Channel, updated 2:17 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct . 17, 2008, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27240370)
Technology and Neoteny
I agree that technology such as hunting weapons likely also contributed to neoteny and the evidence suggests that the causes of brain growth were multifactorial, of which dietary change in types of foods eaten was an important one. I find your dismissals of dietary contributions unconvincing. I find evidence more convincing than opinions.
I don't see increases in the periods of frail childhood dependency on adults as a "good sign" of physical health. It seems more a sign of increasing physical degeneration compensated for by increasingly complex social structures and other adaptations (such as technology). Arguing that the necessity of extended childhood is a "good sign" is like arguing that myopia is a good sign because it inspired ingenuity in the development of vision correction technologies.
Brain/Body Ratio
All the evidence I found said that human brain/body ratio has been pretty steady for the last 10,000 or more years. You will find me relatively open-minded on all topics. So if you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested in it. As for difficult births (dystocia), they are rare among hunter gatherers, particularly the more carnivorous ones, indicating once again the critical importance of the types of foods eaten:
A Darwinian View of Obstructed Labor
Robert P. Roy, MD, FRCSC
Obstetrics & Gynecology 2003;101:397-401
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
http://www.greenjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/2/397
"This essay discusses the evolutionary biology of dystocia. From a Darwinian standpoint, the high frequency of dystocia observed today seems evolutionarily untenable. Hunter-gatherers, most notably the Inuit, appear not to suffer from dystocia. ...."
So a more carnivorous diet appears to have not only contributed to the development of larger brains and bodies in humans, but also better enabled the birthing of these larger-brained children than modern diets.
Is Brain Sulsification an Advantage of Neolithic Diets?
If you have evidence of increased sulsification deriving from a Neolithic diet across all ecological environments and geographic regions, please provide it. Are you implying from your remarks on sulsification that the Neolithic diet is superior to the Paleolithic diet with regards to effects on the brain? I've noticed that the vast majority of your posts are positive about the raw aspect of RPD, but rarely the Paleo aspect. Do you believe in the healthiness of Paleo, or just of raw nondairy, nongrain, nonlegume? In other words, do you think that the Paleo diet was overall superior to the Neolithic diet, including Paleo's higher levels of meats and animal fats and lower-glycemic wild plants, or just certain aspects of Paleo (such as no dairy, grain, legumes or additives)?
Brain size and Intelligence
Tyler wrote: "...so that brain-size isn't necessarily the only factor - if it were the sole factor, presumably, the Inuit would be beating everyone else re Nobel Prizes/Mensa or whatever."
Of course brain size isn't the only factor in intelligence, when evolutionary biologists speak of the increasing intelligence of hominids as brain size increased, that does not mean they are attributing intelligence solely to brain size. As regards the Inuit and other HGs, Jared Diamond actually has argued that HGs like those of Papua New Guinea are probably more intelligent ON AVERAGE than moderners. Whether Diamond is right or wrong about that, moderners will always win any intelligence competition because there are 6+ billion of them vs. 300,000 HGs by the last estimate I saw--so the odds of moderners producing exceptional geniuses are far greater on the basis of sheer volume. The fact that HGs who are still eating their traditional diet don't tend to participate in activities that lead to Nobel Prizes and Mensa memberships is of course another factor revealing the Nobel/Mensa argument to be a nonsensical canard.
More research is needed in this area, but wild animals provide some interesting clues:
"Domestication of the wolf over time has produced a number of physical changes typical of all domesticated mammals. These include: a reduction in overall size; changes in coat colouration and markings; a shorter jaw initially with crowding of the teeth and, later, with the shrinking in size of the teeth; a reduction in brain size and intelligence and thus in cranial capacity (particularly those areas relating to alertness and sensory processing, necessary in the wild); and the development of a pronounced "stop", or vertical drop in front of the forehead (brachycephaly)." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog)
Are you arguing that brain size started declining precipitously exactly 35k years ago, whereas plant foods were not a significant part of human diets until at least 30k years ago, therefore making a connection impossible? What change do you posit suddenly occurred 35k years ago that accounts for decreasing brain size since that time and what reason for the critical certainty regarding that precise millenium?
Starting Points of Increased Plant Food Consumption vs. Brain Size Decline in the Upper Paleolithic
Tyler wrote: "First of all, it's pretty clear that Barry Groves just arbitrarily picked that 30,000 figure [for the start of increased plant foods in the diet] out of thin air."
I'm not inclined to believe that accusation based solely on your say-so. It's quite a coincidence that Clive Gamble picked the same figure for the approximate end of the Middle Paleolithic and Carnivore Guild. Apparently I'm expected to believe that he too picked it "out of thin air"? Isn't it more likely that Groves read about it somewhere, as I did, and was just repeating what he read?
Tyler wrote: "So far, there is no reason to assume that plant-eating suddenly expanded around that time, given the available evidence. ... There are plenty of other explanations. One could be that humans were no longer subject to natural selection by that stage, thus not being selected by nature for higher IQ. Another explanation I gave earlier is that some areas(eg:- frontal lobe) may have expanded while other areas contracted much more, being less "essential". Also, the very minor -3% figure is substantially less than the -8% figure so it is much more likely to be due to non-dietary factors than the larger -8% figure."
These speculations are interesting, but I'm not assuming anything is correct without evidence. So which do you propose to be the main factors in brain decline that started at your chosen 35k ya figure, or any other figure you may choose (75k ya was another figure cited in a source I found today), and what evidence do you have to support it?
Do you not find it an interesting coincidence that human brain size reached its peak during the Carnivore Guild and declined most dramatically during the Neolithic? At the very least, it would seem that meat eating does not guarantee brain shrinkage and plant eating does not guarantee avoiding it.
Tyler wrote: "...the main transition to plant-foods only started c.20,000 years ago when the Mesolithic era started in the Middle-East. Granted, it took even longer for plant-foods to be introduced into other regions. But the point is that 30,000(or 40,000 or further) years for plant-foods is way too much, given the scientific data."
Thanks for those specifics, do you have any data to support this? Your more recent figure for transition to more plant foods in the diet would seem to suggest that we may be even less adapted to plants than the 30,000-40,000 figures would suggest, yes?
Here is some more evidence I found that uses your 35,000 ybp figure for brain-size decline and correlates it with decreased animal foods:
Paleolithic Diet vs. Vegetarianism: What was humanity's original, natural diet? A 3-Part Visit with Ward Nicholson
Part 1: Setting the Scientific Record Straight on Humanity's Evolutionary Prehistoric Diet and Ape Diets
(LAST UPDATED 3/24/2000)
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1f.shtml
Human brain size since the late Paleolithic has decreased in tandem with decreasing contribution of animal food to diet. In addition, a recent analysis updating the picture of encephalization (relative brain size) changes in humans during our evolutionary history has revealed that human cranial capacity has decreased by 11% in the last 35,000 years, the bulk of it (8%) in the last 10,000 [Ruff, Trinkaus, and Holliday 1997]. Eaton [1998] notes that this correlates well with decreasing amounts of animal food in the human diet during this timeframe. (Of particular relevance here is that most of this decrease in animal foods correlates with the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago.)
However, here is another source that muddies the waters for both of us, citing peak brain size at 75k ybp and pointing to social changes as well as increased foraging (in other words, increased plant and small-animal foods) to explain it.
Rambling Road to Humanity: Anthropologists debunk another myth of evolutionary progress
Scientific American
Corey S. Powell and W. Wayt Gibbs, staff writers
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=50889
Hominid brains appear to have remained fairly constant in size for a very long stretch from 1.8 million years ago until about 600,000 years ago--a "period of stasis" whose reality has long been debated by scientists. An abrupt break occurred during the Middle Pleistocene epoch (from 600,000 to 150,000 years before the present), when fossils show that the cranial capacity of our ancestors skyrocketed. This trend peaked roughly 75,000 years ago, when archaic Homo sapiens fossils (a category that includes the well-known Neanderthals) indicate a brain mass of about 1,440 grams. Since then, brain mass has actually drifted downward to the 1,300 grams that is typical today.
Brain size alone does not tell the whole story, of course. Intelligence seems to have less to do with brain size per se than with the brain's proportion to the body it must care for and control (and even that link is rather tenuous). Here, too, the results of the Nature paper are telling. Over the nearly two-million-year span that Ruff and his co-authors examined, ancient hominids were on average about 10 percent more massive than modern humans. Body size peaked about 50,000 years ago: Neanderthals were muscular brutes who weighed upwards of a quarter more than modern humans. Since that time, humans have been marching steadily downhill in both stature and cranial capacity (with the exception of some recent gains due to improved nutrition and reduced disease). The good news is that the steeper decline in body mass over the past 50,000 years has raised our ratio of brain to body above Neanderthal levels, even though total brain mass has dipped.
...
In considering the new reconstructions of Homo over the past 90,000 years, Kappelman is struck less by the roughly constant brain size than by the rapid decrease in body size, which runs quite counter to the earlier steady or upward trends. He suggests that this decrease in overall bulk was favored "by a social structure that relied on more cooperative foraging and better communication skills." At the same time, a better and more reliable food supply could support the metabolic demands of a large brain. "The increase in relative brain size of modern humans may then be, in part, an effect of selection for smaller body mass," Kappelman rather ignominiously concludes.
So this is what it has come to. The favored son of the Garden of Eden has been demoted to the incredible shrinking human.
The following evidence of the deleterious effects of plant foods shows that where Weston Price erred was in underestimating the importance of animal meats/fats and the damage that even somewhat older Neolithic plant foods (and I would add raw dairy) do:
"The following 2 websites go on about the gradual decrease in height of (pre-1769)Maori skeletons, over the centuries, as they turned to eating grains, including a few mentions of frequent stomach-tumours in the Maori population, and the excessive wearing of teeth, especially molars, due to consumption of plant foods. They do have one or two nice things to say about Maori health, but mostly they mention the low rate of life-expectancy(25-30 years), the low fertility, the high susceptibility to disease etc in pre-colonial times:-
http://tinyurl.com/gs5oy
http://tinyurl.com/kk5vu"
--Geoff Purcell
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/message/1107
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Look, Weston Price was never properly scrutinised re scientific evidence. He just baldly stated his views and claims, and chose the best photos he had. Here's a link which points out how Price invented a very dubious theory(focal infection theory) which was duly proven to be false(something similiar happened to Stefansson whose Blond Eskimo theory was attacked for being fraudulent and later proven to be wrong):-
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html
The fact is Price as shown above ignored such data as the high infant mortality among tribes. Plus he seems to have visited a hell of a lot of tribes(implying very strongly that he didn't stay long enough to actually properly observe each one. Is there any data re how long he actually spent doing his trip? I can't remember.
Do you have counter-evidence to this? As I've said before, unsupported claims made with certainty, based solely on one's say-so, raise my suspicion-meter more than anything. Even if we grant that Weston Price was a "total fraud" based solely on your say-so, then what about the similar findings of Jared Diamond, Tanchou, Stefansson, Washburn, Eaton, Cordain, Lindeberg, etc. re: the superior health and morphology of people eating more traditional/ancestral diets, including Cordain on malocclusion based on observational evidence and bones and fossils? Do you have evdince to show that all of it worthless?
I've already shown that Weston Price is/was viewed as a fraud. As for the others, it's one thing when Cordain and a few others claim SOME health benefits for people on more ancestral diets(but admit that health wasn't necessarily ideal), it's quite another thing when Weston-Price and the WAPF claim universal health for any native tribe on ancestral diets. Plus, Price never explained the fact that many native tribes died out, not from switching to western diets, but because they suddenly got infections from Westerners re diseases to which their immune-systems were not adapted to - so much for the notion that native diets protect against all or most disease.
I already agreed with you that cooking is a factor in malocclusion. Based on the accumulating evidence, the types of foods eaten appear to be an even more important factor in malocclusion. Sorry, but I find your dismissals of such unconvincing.
Well, I think we can agree that malocclusion is caused by cooked foods in general, exacerbated by grains etc.
Your suggestion that smaller dogs are less intelligent than larger dogs would appear to also argue against increases in brain size and intelligence from selected neoteny, as "toy" dogs like chihuahuas are reportedly the most severely neotenized of all breeds. As Budiansky reportedly argued: "Toy dogs often display an extreme level of neoteny, resembling not just infant, but fetal wolves." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny, sourcing Budiansky, Stephen, 1999, The Covenant of the Wild: Why animals chose domestication. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300079931), whereas the Alaskan breeds and large shepherd dogs are considered to be some of the least changed breeds from wild ancestors:
The problem is this:- tiny dogs/toy dogs are deliberately heavily inbred to acquire certain unnatural characteristics which may even restrict breathing, create permanent headaches etc(read the news on cruft's dog show being forced to tighten breeding laws becasue of this). So, any benefit they got from neoteny would be cancelled out by the increased degree of inbreeding over the millenia, and the (negative) selection of genetic traits which did not favour intelligence.
*Caveat*:- When I related my personal experience, I forgot 1 obvious matter:- Tiny dogs not only have much smaller brains overall than larger dogs(weight for weight), but they might well be more intelligent than might be expected for their size. So, a chihuahua might not be as intelligent as a wolf-like malamute but more intelligent in relation to its brain-weight, if you see what I mean.
I agree that technology such as hunting weapons likely also contributed to neoteny and the evidence suggests that the causes of brain growth were multifactorial, of which dietary change in types of foods eaten was an important one. I find your dismissals of dietary contributions unconvincing. I find evidence more convincing than opinions.
The evidence in favour of diet(or against diet for that matter) is hardly solid, and still very weak on both sides. I was referring simply to the fact that since wild animals easily gain bigger brains(in proportion to body size) without needing to vastly expand their meat-intake in the diet, that dietary explanations are rather weak, by contrast.
I don't see increases in the periods of frail childhood dependency on adults as a "good sign" of physical health. It seems more a sign of increasing physical degeneration compensated for by increasingly complex social structures and other adaptations (such as technology). Arguing that the necessity of extended childhood is a "good sign" is like arguing that myopia is a good sign because it inspired ingenuity in the development of vision correction technologies.
There are various benefits:- first of all, being a teenager hardly involves total dependence on parents(most teenagers in tribal cultures are already given work and have adulthood rites around puberty). The point is that being a teenager allowed them more time to learn more complex technology/social practices etc. There's certainly no reason to assume that being a teenager was harmful. The teenage phase seems to have gone hand in hand with the extension of human lifespan, hardly a bad thing. Plus, teenagehood prevented pregnancy to a large extent due to 2 reasons, thus allowing people to learn before starting a family.
I'd be interested in it. As for difficult births (dystocia), they are rare among hunter gatherers, particularly the more carnivorous ones, indicating once again the critical importance of the types of foods eaten:
So a more carnivorous diet appears to have not only contributed to the development of larger brains and bodies in humans, but also better enabled the birthing of these larger-brained children than modern diets.
Unreferenced. Difficult births occur in all tribes, hardly being insignificant. And Inuit certainly don't have lower rates of difficult births by comparison to others.
Are you implying from your remarks on sulsification that the Neolithic diet is superior to the Paleolithic diet with regards to effects on the brain? I've noticed that the vast majority of your posts are positive about the raw aspect of RPD, but rarely the Paleo aspect. Do you believe in the healthiness of Paleo, or just of raw nondairy, nongrain, nonlegume? In other words, do you think that the Paleo diet was overall superior to the Neolithic diet, including Paleo's higher levels of meats and animal fats and lower-glycemic wild plants, or just certain aspects of Paleo (such as no dairy, grain, legumes or additives)?
Absolutely. I'm simply stating that even if the Neolithic had some bad effects that it is possible that humans compensated for the negatives with some positives. I mean, we may have consumed grains in the Neolithic, but we still produced Beethoven etc.!
Of course brain size isn't the only factor in intelligence, when evolutionary biologists speak of the increasing intelligence of hominids as brain size increased, that does not mean they are attributing intelligence solely to brain size. As regards the Inuit and other HGs, Jared Diamond actually has argued that HGs like those of Papua New Guinea are probably more intelligent ON AVERAGE than moderners. Whether Diamond is right or wrong about that, moderners will always win any intelligence competition because there are 6+ billion of them vs. 300,000 HGs by the last estimate I saw--so the odds of moderners producing exceptional geniuses are far greater on the basis of sheer volume. The fact that HGs who are still eating their traditional diet don't tend to participate in activities that lead to Nobel Prizes and Mensa memberships is of course another factor revealing the Nobel/Mensa argument to be a nonsensical canard.
I seriously doubt Jared's absurd claim re NG tribes. One would expect them to have achieved more if their IQ really was higher than anyone else's. Their social restrictions are far less nowadays(I mean Inuit have their own nation, for example, in Canada). So, one can only conclude that if their IQ was indeed higher that it could only be of a very insignificant nature, not like, say, the difference between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon. *added*Anyway, there are so many other flaws in Jared's work that that NG-based theory is also likely to be bonkers.
Starting Points of Increased Plant Food Consumption vs. Brain Size Decline in the Upper Paleolithic
Tyler wrote: "First of all, it's pretty clear that Barry Groves just arbitrarily picked that 30,000 figure [for the start of increased plant foods in the diet] out of thin air."
I'm not inclined to believe that accusation based solely on your say-so. It's quite a coincidence that Clive Gamble picked the same figure for the approximate end of the Middle Paleolithic and Carnivore Guild. Apparently I'm expected to believe that he too picked it "out of thin air"? Isn't it more likely that Groves read about it somewhere, as I did, and was just repeating what he read?
I guess, but the Groves reference was the first 1 I'd ever heard in all my years of reading about the palaeolithic. Plus, there are rather too many references to large amounts of meat-eating c.23,000 years ago in many places, for me to give much credence to the theory.
Thanks for those specifics, do you have any data to support this? Your more recent figure for transition to more plant foods in the diet would seem to suggest that we may be even less adapted to plants than the 30,000-40,000 figures would suggest, yes?
Here is some more evidence I found that uses your 35,000 ybp figure for brain-size decline and correlates it with decreased animal foods:
That above statement is very vague and doesn't seem to take into account the Mesolithic era at all. Given that grain-consumption started c.20,000 years ago in the Near East, the whole of that could be attributable to the decrease in brain-size. Plus, it is pointed out that body-size decreased in tandem with brain-size in that era. The key to IQ is the ratio of brain- to body size, not just brain-size, so there is no possible claim that cro-magnon were brighter than us. Indeed, it is entirely possible that civilisation vastly improved IQ via sulsification or other methods. Indeed, I sometimes strongly wonder if the decrease in brain-size in the neolithic was not due to neolithic foods but the result of some other compensation(eg:- thickening of the frontal lobes, thus not needing a bigger brain). After all, the Neanderthals had bigger brains than cro-magnon, and didn't survive, despite this.
The following evidence of the deleterious effects of plant foods shows that where Weston Price erred was in underestimating the importance of animal meats/fats and the damage that even somewhat older Neolithic plant foods (and I would add raw dairy) do
I see you've accepted that Price wasn't too reliable.
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There are various benefits:- first of all, being a teenager hardly involves total dependence on parents(most teenagers in tribal cultures are already given work and have adulthood rites around puberty). The point is that being a teenager allowed them more time to learn more complex technology/social practices etc. There's certainly no reason to assume that being a teenager was harmful. The teenage phase seems to have gone hand in hand with the extension of human lifespan, hardly a bad thing. Plus, teenagehood prevented pregnancy to a large extent due to 2 reasons, thus allowing people to learn before starting a family.
The English church records show that there were no teenagers before the industrial revolution.
Everyone married at the ripe old age of 13, and first childbirth was at 16.
I haven't seen records from elsewhere, but I would bet it was the same.
Much better than the present system.
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Hnmm, that's at least a bit more original than the notion that carnivores are supposedly superior to other humans re hunting instincts or whatever. I'm amused that you should consider that carbs make one think too much - well, perhaps the meat-DHA/brain theory is wrong and eating carbs caused our ancestors' brains to grow!
What I find interesting is that it's cooked foods that are increasingly being linked to depression, schizophrenia, alzheimer's and other mental issues. This is because cooking creates opioids which act on the brain like drugs, causing all sorts of problems re mood etc.
I still think a carb based diet makes humans over think. I don't see whats so amusing about this idea. I think you just rushed through my post and argued what you felt like arguing about.
I also agree that cooked carb based diets do cause depression etc and I would also include 'thinking too much' as a disorder.
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The English church records show that there were no teenagers before the industrial revolution.
Everyone married at the ripe old age of 13, and first childbirth was at 16.
I haven't seen records from elsewhere, but I would bet it was the same.
Much better than the present system.
Nonsense, of course. Physically, they were teenagers, regardless of early marriage. Humans don't mature physically until much later(women at the age of 20 when their hips widen and men c. the age of 18(if one doesn't count very minor growth in the early 20s for some people)).
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I still think a carb based diet makes humans over think. I don't see whats so amusing about this idea. I think you just rushed through my post and argued what you felt like arguing about.
I also agree that cooked carb based diets do cause depression etc and I would also include 'thinking too much' as a disorder.
The depression-issue seems more caused by lack of bacteria than carbs. Bacteria have been directly linked to improvement in moood after all.
As far as "thinking too much", I don't see how that is the same as "depression" - quite a different concept, entirely. Plus, there might be a benefit to the disadvantage (eg:- increased rate of thinking leading to more advanced cultures versus a rise in depression - who knows?)
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I didn't have the time to fully address 1 issue that Paleophil claimed. It's actually well-known that death in childbirth was endemic in the Palaeolithic. In fact, one reason why female average lifespan was 5.4 years lower than the male average lifespan during the Palaeolithic was because of this factor. When one considers that males were prone to deaths during hunting etc., one can see that the number of deaths from childbirth was pretty high. As for claims re ease of childbirth of zero-carb diets, I have yet to see any real evidence of that.
Here's a link with quote:-
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml
"Paleolithic females died younger than males due to the stresses of pregnancy and childbirth while still carrying the burdens of food-collecting and moving camp. "
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The depression-issue seems more caused by lack of bacteria than carbs. Bacteria have been directly linked to improvement in moood after all.
Interesting. Do you have any reference/links about the relation between bacteria and mood ?
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Interesting. Do you have any reference/links about the relation between bacteria and mood ?
Here's a link:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1547346/Getting-dirty-could-prevent-depression.html
If you want to read more about the subject, I would suggest you Google under the term "hygiene hypothesis" and you'll find lots more info on the beneficial effects of bacteria re mood-improvement and other matters.
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I've just read the Wrangham radio link on the NPR channel which was provided for me on the (mainly cooked) paleofoood mailing list. He was advertising his new book and what was not promising was that he mainly just recycled all the stuff he wrote before(ie such ludicrous claims that humans need to chew raw meat for 5.7 to 6.2 hours every day in order to get enough calories/energy. Similiarly he gets away with deliberate distortions such as claiming that a study showed raw foodist women losing their ability to menstruate. Unfortunately, this study focused on raw vegans so the loss of menstruation is far more likely to be due to nutritional deficiencies on a vegan diet(raw or cooked) than due to cooking as a 100% fruit/veg diet cannot supply all the nutrients humans need(they're not "complete" foods).
The 1 good thing is that he very grudgingly acknowledges the existence of Maillard products, the heat-created toxins in cooked foods. He makes an unsupported claim that we must be adapted to them(despite 1000s od studies proving the exact opposite) but at least admits that the large loads of such heat-created toxins in cooked foods far outweigh in amounts the tiny natural trace amounts of AGEs in the human body.He was forced to listen to a caller who pointed out how such Maillard products are heavily implicated in aging. But the main thing is that scientific concensus now accepts that well-cooked foods, especially well-cooked animal foods are harmful to human health(because of those toxins), so that the pro-cooked-food argument is already half-lost.
Oh, and he made the usual dud claim that all health benefits gained on a raw foodist diet are solely down to weight-loss due to supposedly not being able to digest raw foods very well. That is just laughable.
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Wrangham also makes an unusual admission. While trying to claim that cooked foods are better digested, he claims that the more highly processed/softer a food becomes the easier it gets digested, and so he claims that modern obesity is the result of eating (highly) processed cooked foods which are too easily digested. This is , of course, ridiculous as an idea, and, indeed, there are many reasons as to why the more highly processed a food becomes the LESS digestible it becomes, but I can see why wrangham makes that claim - after all, Wrangham is well aware of the health claims of raw foodists and he (wrongly) assumes that weight-loss is the central main claim of raw vegans, so he tries to explain away the fact that eating cooked foods leads to obesity as people would normally logically assume that any diet leading to obesity must be unhealthy as well.
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Hi Tyler,
Just testing the auto email notification of the forum.
Did you get an auto reply in your mailbox?
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Unreferenced. Difficult births occur in all tribes, hardly being insignificant. And Inuit certainly don't have lower rates of difficult births by comparison to others.
Actually, I have accumulated quite a bit of evidence and anecdotal reports of relatively easy childbirths on hunter-gatherer-type diets.
I'll post new threads on this and other topics, so your journal doesn't get too sidetracked.
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Wrangham also makes an unusual admission. While trying to claim that cooked foods are better digested, he claims that the more highly processed/softer a food becomes the easier it gets digested, and so he claims that modern obesity is the result of eating (highly) processed cooked foods which are too easily digested. This is , of course, ridiculous as an idea, and, indeed, there are many reasons as to why the more highly processed a food becomes the LESS digestible it becomes, but I can see why wrangham makes that claim - after all, Wrangham is well aware of the health claims of raw foodists and he (wrongly) assumes that weight-loss is the central main claim of raw vegans, so he tries to explain away the fact that eating cooked foods leads to obesity as people would normally logically assume that any diet leading to obesity must be unhealthy as well.
And obesity is not caused by too much nutrients. It is more a state of undernourishment, where the body is craving because nutrients in food are all diverted to fat storage (insulin too high).
Wrangram is dead wrong on everything he says. He has probably never eaten raw meat in his life. I am just surprised that intelligent people like the MD on Paleonu believes in these craps.
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Hi Tyler,
Just testing the auto email notification of the forum.
Did you get an auto reply in your mailbox?
Yup!
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I've been thinking . The Inuit tribes are usually described as only eating 96%-99% animal foods in their diet(some must presumably be eating fermented stomach-contents(ie plant-matter) of caribou etc.. So, perhaps over the generations, they've adapted to at least very small amounts of carbs, whereas people new to ZC diets have greater difficuly adding back carbs. It's just a thought.
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One thing I've noticed in recent months is that, for me anyway, eating raw meats with any spices(however raw or organic) invariably results in quicker bowel movements(ie roughly 1 a day) whereas eating raw meats on their own leads to bowel movements only every 2 days or so (every 3 days if whole-day fasting practised).
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Tyler, so what do you conclude from that? I know people are encouraged to drop the spices on other carnivore forums, but I believe that's because spices increases the appetite, I did do that when I wanted to lose weight, but now I don't need to lose any further, so I added spices back.
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Tyler, so what do you conclude from that? I know people are encouraged to drop the spices on other carnivore forums, but I believe that's because spices increases the appetite, I did do that when I wanted to lose weight, but now I don't need to lose any further, so I added spices back.
Well, my guess would be that the meats I ate along with the spices were less well absorbed than the spice-free meats.
I also agree re appetite. I notice that I polish off much more meat when adding spices.
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Well, my guess would be that the meats I ate along with the spices were less well absorbed than the spice-free meats.
I also agree re appetite. I notice that I polish off much more meat when adding spices.
I've noticed the same things. When I eat any spices or other plant matter with my meats or cook my meats I absorb the food less efficiently, and spices or light cooking enable me to eat more (so I still sometimes use spices if I'm having trouble finishing off some meat). What is your thinking on the mechanisms behind these phenomena?
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I've noticed the same things. When I eat any spices or other plant matter with my meats or cook my meats I absorb the food less efficiently, and spices or light cooking enable me to eat more (so I still sometimes use spices if I'm having trouble finishing off some meat). What is your thinking on the mechanisms behind these phenomena?
Well, obviously, one shouldn't eat plants at the same time as meats. I tend to believe in food-combining rules such as this as right at the start of this diet, when my digestive system was still ruined by years of eating cooked foods, I would have some slight trouble if I ate fruits and meats at the same time. I needed c. 30 minutes between eating fruit and then meat(preferably in that order, as fruit is more quickly digested than meats).
As for the appetite issue, I simply reckon that the extra spices interfere with our natural instincts abd appetite-regulation so that we then overeat(as in Instincto doctrine).
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I recently tried some snuff(dried tobacco powder). I hadn't used it ever since going rawpalaeo, until now, as I no longer felt the need(I'd mainly used snuff in pre-rawpalaeo days to clear excess mucus in the nose). However, I was curious to see if I got any other boosting effect from it. Apparently it didn't work.
The reason I mention this is that I increasingly find it unpleasant to eat cooked animal food as I often vomit it out up to 30 minutes later. So, my solution when at gatherings involving such fare etc. is to do some other kind of "cheat" that isn't going to affect me much and doesn't harm me in any immediately noticeable way. So, when among smokers, I would take snuff, when among SAD-eaters I would eat cooked plant foods etc.
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Well, obviously, one shouldn't eat plants at the same time as meats. ...
What is the instinctive explanation for the natural origin of the necessity of food separating?
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What is the instinctive explanation for the natural origin of the necessity of food separating?
All I know is the claim re food-combining gurus that different enzymes are needed for digesting different foods. As for palaeo times, I'm sure that there were far fewer opportunities to mix different foods(even of different kinds of meat) as they would only have available what they hunted or gathered right then, for the most part.
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Yeah, but didn't they bring some of what they hunted back to the camp/village, to be shared with everyone along with the plant foods that had been gathered that day? I'm not getting a picture in my mind of how this food separation worked. I would think that they would have liked meat/fat better than wild greens, so that when their favorite fruits were not available, it seems to me they would have eaten the meat first. I'm just speculating here, trying to get a grasp of this unfamiliar subject. Do you have any sources where I can read up on this?
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The food-combining experts will be talking of cooked, and if it's true that cooked meat provokes acid in the stomach, then adding alkalizing veggies would somewhat neutralize that acid, and give us that once-familiar full or stuffed or bloated feeling AKA indigestion.
Combining raw meat and alkalizing veggies might not be so bad, but why eat them anyway?
IIRC any sweet must not be mixed with meat, that includes fruit.
Fat is neutral, so can be eaten with anything. They would also mean cooked fat.
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IIRC any sweet must not be mixed with meat, that includes fruit.
i agree that combining meat with greens or fruit is a bad idea, but i've found that raw honey goes down very well with meat and fat.
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Yeah, but didn't they bring some of what they hunted back to the camp/village, to be shared with everyone along with the plant foods that had been gathered that day? I'm not getting a picture in my mind of how this food separation worked. I would think that they would have liked meat/fat better than wild greens, so that when their favorite fruits were not available, it seems to me they would have eaten the meat first. I'm just speculating here, trying to get a grasp of this unfamiliar subject. Do you have any sources where I can read up on this?
Food combining is too vague a theory for me to know of any reasonable evidence. It seems mostly based on anecdotal reports.
Re fruit:- Fruit gets far more quickly digested than meats so , if eaten, c.20 minutes before the meat, there would be no issues. As far as fruit is concerned, I prefer to eat the fruit first, myself, I've always thought that the usual mainstream-diet--routine of vegetables first, meats second, then fruit/desert, was wrongheaded.
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Re fruit:- Fruit gets far more quickly digested than meats so , if eaten, c.20 minutes before the meat, there would be no issues. As far as fruit is concerned, I prefer to eat the fruit first, myself, I've always thought that the usual mainstream-diet--routine of vegetables first, meats second, then fruit/desert, was wrongheaded.
Now that makes intuitive sense to me. Plus, fruits and honeycomb/grubcomb would have been rare treats and any that wasn't preserved for long term storage (as in dried berries and stored honey or meat) probably got gobbled up quickly, since fruits go bad quickly when they aren't dried, and many other animals (like some birds) would also have competed for them, and sugar is quite a powerful stimulator for humans.
Don't know how true it is, but I read that the Lakota/Dakota used to eat berries first, before eating bison meat. The idea allegedly was that the fruit acids would aid digestion. Only problem with that tip for me (beyond the carbs) was that I found that some fruit acids upset my sensitive stomach and esophagus.
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Today, I experienced another epiphany. Every 2-3 years or so, since going rawpalaeo and cutting out raw dairy, I've felt a sudden increase in concentration/alertness etc. This isn't the same as general health or removal of past pre-rawpalaeo symptoms(that was solved by c.2-3 years after going rawpalaeo), it's just an astonishing boost that is rather unexplainable.
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Interesting. I've had increasing concentration/alertness too, but I don't recall most of it being sudden, except for one point, three and a half weeks after going gluten free. Any idea why your increases have come suddenly rather than gradually? Did you connect these incidents with anything?
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Interesting. I've had increasing concentration/alertness too, but I don't recall most of it being sudden, except for one point, three and a half weeks after going gluten free. Any idea why your increases have come suddenly rather than gradually? Did you connect these incidents with anything?
That's just it, there was no corresponding action or food that happened at the same time. Same happened with the detoxes I had in the first 2-3 years of the diet, they would just occur randomly without warning every 2 to 4 months(the only exception was the first time I used edible clay when a detox happened almost immediately after).
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What happens is that the CIA's local dumbing-down transmitter blows a fuse or something, so we can think clearly until it's fixed.
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That's just it, there was no corresponding action or food that happened at the same time. Same happened with the detoxes I had in the first 2-3 years of the diet, they would just occur randomly without warning every 2 to 4 months(the only exception was the first time I used edible clay when a detox happened almost immediately after).
Do you still believe in using edible clays for detox?
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Do you still believe in using edible clays for detox?
Well, they worked once for me, wonderfully,but not since then. So, I think they do work but perhaps only for people with specific toxicity issues.So, I do recommend their use.
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I recently got tired of having to wait for a wild hare carcass to thaw so put it in the bath and poured just hot water from the relevant tap over the carcass(wrapped in vacuum-packs) up to halfway up the carcass. I left it there for a few minutes while it warmed up and switched the carcass upisde down to get the other side thawed. My question is, for those who have separate hot and cold taps:- what is the temperature of the hot-water tap, generally?
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My question is, for those who have separate hot and cold taps:- what is the temperature of the hot-water tap, generally?
140F
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140F
Thanks. I'd hoped it would be lower. Ah well, I'll just have to take longer to thaw my wild hare carcasses.
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My irises are clearing up a little more(perhaps due to the krill-oil?). It wouldn't surprise me if my eyes will be completely green in a couple of years.
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Same happened with the detoxes I had in the first 2-3 years of the diet, they would just occur randomly without warning every 2 to 4 months(the only exception was the first time I used edible clay when a detox happened almost immediately after).
Which clays did you use, and how did you use them? Some are raw, some not, etc.
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I used edible French Green Clay. I ate 1 tablespoonful a day at the time and sometimes used it in the bath.
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I recently tried snuff. I didn't really need it as I only used it previously in pre-rawpalaeo days to clear my nose of all the mucus caused by dairy-consumption. I just tried it to see if I got any boosting effect from it, but nothing happened. Anyway, it was an interesting experiment and it's over.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention:- one of my occasional dodgy foods is raw, freshly-squeezed fruit-juices; there's no dairy or soy in them, as sometimes is the case, and the fruit is not organic. But it's handy because there are few places in central London where one can straightaway find a rawpalaeoish substitute. I only drink 1 or 2 large glasses every fortnight, naturally.
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What I've always found odd is that I've never been affected by marijuana or tobacco either pre- or post-rawpalaeo, yet seem to get high on certain foods. Anyway, for the first time in 2 years(I've tried raw dairy for short periods twice before during my 8 years on this diet since giving it up as a mainstay) I've had some raw dairy and am now feeling much like a crack addict on a high. It seems that I'm even more affected by dairy than in previous times. This coincides with a growing food-intolerance of sorts towards cooked foods. Yesterday, I tried some raw sushi and vomited it all out within a few hours. It appears that even cooked rice is now a problem for me, unless eaten in small amounts.
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man, i feell like im also losing the ability to digest cooked stuff. yesterday i found out the hard way that steamed sweet potatoes act pretty much like a colon cleanse for me, haha. i ate one very small sweet potato and immediately got a headache, nausea, and brain fog. and hour later it all pretty much fell out of me. i was doing this as a test to see whether i could tolerate some cooked food at thanksgiving, but apparently i can't. i mean, it wasnt that bad but definitely not fun. maybe i can tolerate cooked meat a little better. we'll see
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½ cup (dry) of sticky rice, eaten alone late last winter.
I was high/euphoric all the next day, and full of energy.
Other stuff more recently give the same results yy got when in small quantities, and recall the dreaded heart problems in larger quantities.
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Yesterday, I tried some raw sushi and vomited it all out within a few hours. It appears that even cooked rice is now a problem for me, unless eaten in small amounts.
You live in London. Don't your sushi restaurants have the option of Sashimi-style (substituting raw greens/cucumber/daikon for rice)? That's how I always order it.
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You live in London. Don't your sushi restaurants have the option of Sashimi-style (substituting raw greens/cucumber/daikon for rice)? That's how I always order it.
All the sushi I buy generally comes with rice.
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All the sushi I buy generally comes with rice.
Some restaurants over here have a buffet. I got one recently. I took the rice off. I don't like wasting, but it's their fault for not serving sashimi.
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All the sushi I buy generally comes with rice.
Maybe it's because the low-carb craze hasn't hit England like it has the US. I can't think of any other reason.
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I've always been keen to point out the need for variety on this kind of diet, but was, admittedly, more active on finding new kinds of raw foods, in my first 3 years of diet. I was so spoiled after that point what with access to raw wild hare carcasses and the like that I didn't feel the need to expand my range. However, on Sunday's farmer's market I found a new fruit I'd never heard of before:- medlars. They taste really good but, oddly, need to be eaten in rotten form so as to be soft and tasty enough.
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(http://adambalic.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/22/misc_012.jpg)
Is it a berry?
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No, it's not a berry but a pome fruit like appels or pears. Very interesting tasty fruit, easy to grow organically, almost wild and ripeness in november.
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One of the most annoying cultural traits in the UK is the notion that one cannot eat out alone in restaurants. It's considered very strange indeed, for some absurd reason. I recently tried eating raw meat kitfo in an Ethiopian restaurant and got strange stares(it seems they only offered it in cooked form) but it was worse as I'd tried this idea when on my own. I don't know why that is. It makes no sense.
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I've been doing some vague research on "berserkergang" which is an interesting aspect which might well have been practised by our palaeo ancestors(I've never thought that diet was the answer to everything and have always thought that exercise etc. was also important). Here are a couple of links:-
http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/berserk.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker
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It's considered very strange indeed, for some absurd reason. I recently tried eating raw meat kitfo in an Ethiopian restaurant and got strange stares(it seems they only offered it in cooked form) but it was worse as I'd tried this idea when on my own.
Here I think it depends which state or area of the country. In some places I can go into an Ethiopian restaurant, and if I tell them to treat me as one of their countrymen, they will serve me raw no problem in most cases, but I also have not eaten alone in a place like this. There is one Ethiopian cafe, that just does not serve raw meat, as it is situated in a medical building. There I can only get fresh made fruit salad, or fresh green salad makings and I can eat alone no problem. Other parts, they will promise raw meat, but will deliver otherwise and then give strange looks. At least they don't charge for there mistake though, but it is a real bother when you drive far to get there then have to wait while they cook it and be stuck with nothing. In this case too I was not alone.
How was your kitfo?
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Here I think it depends which state or area of the country. In some places I can go into an Ethiopian restaurant, and if I tell them to treat me as one of their countrymen, they will serve me raw no problem in most cases, but I also have not eaten alone in a place like this. There is one Ethiopian cafe, that just does not serve raw meat, as it is situated in a medical building. There I can only get fresh made fruit salad, or fresh green salad makings and I can eat alone no problem. Other parts, they will promise raw meat, but will deliver otherwise and then give strange looks. At least they don't charge for there mistake though, but it is a real bother when you drive far to get there then have to wait while they cook it and be stuck with nothing. In this case too I was not alone.
How was your kitfo?
Not bad, lots of dough involved, unfortunately.
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Not bad, lots of dough involved, unfortunately.
The injera? I never made kitfo. I order the gorrad gorrad. It's chunks of meat, instead of grinding it.
Funny, when I get it raw they give me a huge serving and not expensive. The place that lied and it wasn't raw at all, theirs was a small portion served. I always get my gorrad gorrad with less spice, and olive oil instead of butter for toasting the spice.
I'm afraid of ordering it with no spice at all; because maybe people will stare too much, even though they have told me they will do it for me this way. The spices almost necessitate the injera though, or the herbed aib.
I don't know if you do this, if you've had gorrad gorrad, but I wipe the spices off each piece onto the ijera they leave at the table.
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Funny, when I get it raw they give me a huge serving and not expensive. The place that lied and it wasn't raw at all, theirs was a small portion served. I always get my gorrad gorrad with less spice, and olive oil instead of butter for toasting the spice.
What I find amusing is how often I go to restaurants or farmers' markets and find that the highest quality raw food is often the cheapest of those available. I've had amazingly cheap steak tartare and raw wild hare carcasses at a fraction of the price of 100% grassfed/organic beef, and so on.
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What I find amusing is how often I go to restaurants or farmers' markets and find that the highest quality raw food is often the cheapest of those available. I've had amazingly cheap steak tartare and raw wild hare carcasses at a fraction of the price of 100% grassfed/organic beef, and so on.
I just ate local pasture lamb heart and kidney today and shared with my cats. Heart and kidney are so much less expensive than other meat and more nutritious too! Raw meat Should be less expensive in a restaurant. They don't have to slave over a hot stove. It should be their thank you to us for that. Steak tartare here by me Is expensive.
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... I recently tried eating raw meat kitfo in an Ethiopian restaurant and got strange stares(it seems they only offered it in cooked form) but it was worse as I'd tried this idea when on my own. I don't know why that is. It makes no sense.
Interesting. Only thing I can think of is that they're shocked that an Englishmen would eat raw meat, or perhaps some urbanites in Ethiopia have a low opinion of raw meat (although I have seen a video in which it was served in an urban market there--albeit in a poor area)?
I've been doing some vague research on "berserkergang" which is an interesting aspect which might well have been practised by our palaeo ancestors(I've never thought that diet was the answer to everything and have always thought that exercise etc. was also important). ....
I'm familiar with the phenomenon of the berserker, which most traditional societies had (one of the things that helped warriors go "berserk" was certain plants with properties that stimulated adrenalin, strength, fearlessness, etc.), likely back to ancient African, and I'm a fan of exercise, but I'm missing your point. I saw a fascinating documentary in which one combatant took a traditional Zulu berserker concoction and fought a fellow who had not, and the berserker was able to easily overpower the non-berserker, and his strength measurements increased dramatically, IIRC.
BTW, have you heard of the "salmon leap"?
Steak tartare is exhorbitant here, and the portion is skimpy.
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BTW, have you heard of the "salmon leap"?
Steak tartare is exhorbitant here, and the portion is skimpy.
Skimpy here too. If I don't order two I'll starve.
What's the salmon leap?
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Legend has it that berserkers performed amazing, seemingly "superhuman" feats of strength, ability and daring, and the science appears to show that some amazing feats of strength and combat ability are possible when taking the appropriate berserker ingredients before a fight. The salmon leap was a legendary warrior skill that "Celtic" warriors used and that would have been best-suited to lightly-armored berserkers. It also seems like it would require superhuman abilities (although I imagine the leapers might have used the backs of comrades to accomplish it, but that's pure speculation on my part). Apparently, they leaped horizontally over the enemy shield wall (which was difficult to penetrate head-on), and either hacked them from above as they sailed over, or attacked their exposed backs after landing.
I can imagine that the Romans would have been surprised and terrified the first time the Gauls used berserkers and salmon leaps on them (and a documentary I watched recently claimed that the Romans fled in panic from the Gauls in their first major battle). However, berserkers and salmon leapers didn't prevent the Romans from eventually annihilating the Gaulic armies in later campaigns.
Below are some of the references from my files. Unfortunately, since the Celtic peoples didn't traditionally use writing, much of current knowledge is based on legend. When I first heard of the salmon leap, I figured it must be mostly legend, but then when some of the stuff started coming out about the amazing feats and abilities of even recent HGs (such as reported in Manthropology), and I remembered about the ability of a combatant after taking Zulu berserker ingredients in a TV science show, I started to think that the salmon leap might have been fully possible and looked into it some more.
Scathach
"Choosing the Gods," http://www.summerlands.com/crossroads/library/deagusan.htm
Scathach, "She Who Strikes Fear". The Shadow self that walks the Mists. The Irish/Scottish Goddess of martial arts. The Destroyer aspect of the Dark Goddess. A great sword warrior and instructor. Native to the Isle of Skye. Teacher of CuChulainn. Patroness of martial arts, prophecy, blacksmiths and magic. She lived on the otherside of a bottomless pit or "void" that could only be approached by making the "salmon leap" onto her Magical bridge. She taught CuChulainn the "feat of the Gae Bolga", a spear that was thrown with the foot through a stream of water. ...
The Salmon's Leap Hoax?
http://www.oghme.com/cucuc/post/006-the-Hero-s-Hog-Leap?lang=en&navlang=en
Cuchulainn (the warrior our young Setanta will one day become) uses this technique at least three times, in the text called "the wooing of Emer" (recorded in the manuscript called the Leabhar na hUidre).
§68 : Cuchulaind then tried three times to cross the bridge, and could not do it. The men jeered at him. Then he grew mad and jumped on the head of the bridge, and made the hero's salmon leap so that he got on its midst. And the other head of the bridge had not yet fully raised itself when he reached it, and threw himself from it, and (...)
§77 : He (Cuchulainn) noticed it and leapt the hero's salmon-leap up again, and struck the woman's head off (so very Cuchulainnish !)
§86 : He then arrived at the rath of Forgall, and jumped the hero's salmon-leap across the three ramparts, so that he was on the ground of the dun.
.... Also read a few things about the leap being used in battle to go OVER an opponents shield (very useful fighting rank and file fighters such as the Romans). So a high flat forward long jump landing on your feet behind the enemies front shield wall? Could be a possibility. I could also see how this could be used for crossing a gap. And it could be viewed as something similar to how a salmon would look when leaping up a waterfall.
The Salmon Leap
http://members.tripod.com/~Tuan_o_greenfields/salmonleap.html
The Salmon Leap, one of the most frequently mentioned feats of the Ancient Gael. This feat is not such a difficult one, but the strength and skill of the Warrior performing it are what matter.
The Salmon Leap is a graceful leap, executed much like a Swan Dive over a great horizontal distance.
The difference is that the left arm with the Targe firmly in place should be held close to the body so as to afford maximum protection when the Leap ends in a combat posture, face to face with the enemy.
The right arm, carrying either a Spear or a Sword should be extended out and back with the weapon carried high.
To begin the leap on the run it is carried out in the same manner as The Long Jump, with which all who have participated in Track and Field meets will be familiar.
From a standing position, it is carried out like a Standing Long Jump.
The Warrior should accomplish the highest, longest possible arc and accompany the leap with a sufficiently terrifying War Cry.
Credit
The Late Cian Mac Grainne
Mayo Remain Defiant After Galway's Sammon Leap
Monday, July 14, 2008
http://spailpin.blogspot.com/2008/07/mayo-remain-defiant-after-galways.html
One of the great feats of gaiscíocht, or acts of heroism, of the mythical Irish warriors was the salmon leap. The warrior had to be able to leap an opponent’s shield in order to hack off the opponent’s head from above, what modern marketing consultants would consider thinking outside the envelope.
I’ve read about Cú Chulainn’s training with Scáthach. What is this “Salmon Leap” or the “sword feat”? Is there a Celtic Martial Art form?
http://www.paganachd.com/faq/intermediate.html#martialarts
....The “Salmon Leap” is one of the cleasa (“Feats” or “Tricks”) said to have been known by Cú Chulainn prior to arriving on the Isle of Skye, where he traveled to pursue training with Scáthach (a renowned teacher of martial arts, said to have a school on Skye). He makes use of the leap in his “audition”, as it were, to her for instruction. It is also one of the most commonly reported “Feats” of the Irish heroes, though there were other impressive cleasa as well. Classical commentators, in discussing their battles against the Gauls, noted that the Celtic peoples would leap over the shields of their opponents. The “Salmon Leap”, it seems, was simply learning high jumping techniques and practicing them until the warrior could jump up in the air higher than most.
....
For a much more detailed article on this subject see: Celtic Martial Arts by C. Lee Vermeers.
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Never heard of the salmon leap before. As regards berserkergang, it seems they got themselves into that state via trances/religious experiences not via drugs/herbs, as the herbs cited did not even grow in places like Iceland where berserkers were common.
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Never heard of the salmon leap before.
Pretty neat, eh?
As regards berserkergang, it seems they got themselves into that state via trances/religious experiences not via drugs/herbs, as the herbs cited did not even grow in places like Iceland where berserkers were common.
Why not ask me some questions now and then instead of reflexively contradicting so much of what I post? I think it would enable improved communication and sharing and thereby promote learning and cooperation. I was using berserker in the more cross-cultural general sense rather than the narrow sense of the literal Nordic etymological origin of the word:
The word "berserker" today applies to anyone who fights with reckless abandon and disregard to even his own life (Berserker, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker)
And to that general definition I would add that seemingly "superhuman" feats of strength and fearlessness are commonly associated, through legend, history and now science to berserkers.
Multiple cultures across the globe had berserkers, not just the Nordic peoples from whom the name derives, and the general phenomenon of berserkers long predates Nordic cultures, with the Zulu berserker phenomenon that I cited and that was studied being just one example of many. One reason I mentioned the salmon leap, and the reason I thought of it when you brought up berserkergang, is that it was a berserker-type feat. Cuchulainn is a legendary warrior famous for using the salmon leap and is considered a classic example of a berserker.
Parallels in other cultures
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker)
Among the Irish, Cúchulainn acted in the 'battle frenzy', or 'contortion', and many other famous Irish warriors from the pre-Christian period became possessed and frenzied. They are described in texts such as The Tain as foaming at the mouth and not calming down after battle until doused with cold water.
Similar behaviour is described in the Iliad, where warriors who are "possessed" by a god or goddess exhibit superhuman powers.
In historical times, the Spartan warrior Aristodemus is mentioned as acting with a berserker-like fury at the Battle of Plataea, to redeem himself from accusations of having acted with cowardice at Thermopylae.
Berserk behavior is also similar to the Amok frenzy described among Moro tribesmen in the Philippines and among other tribes in Malaysia.
Here is some more on the connection between psychoactive substances and berserkering (bear in mind that trances and religious experiences were often assisted with psychoactive substances, although rhythmic instruments and other means can achieve the same thing more subtly, and most armies had rhythmic or noisy instruments of some sort that could assist in whipping up warriors into a frenzy), including among Norsemen:
Theories on the causes of the berserkergang
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker)
Theories about what caused berserker behaviour include ingestion of materials with psychoactive properties, psychological processes, and medical conditions.
Modern scholars believe certain examples of berserker rage to have been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita (Howard D. Fabing. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly. 83 [Nov. 1956] p. 232), or massive quantities of alcohol (Robert Wernick. The Vikings. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books. 1979. p. 285). While such practices would fit in with ritual usages, other explanations for the berserker's madness have been put forward, including self-induced hysteria, epilepsy, mental illness or genetic flaws (Peter G. Foote and David m. Wilson. The Viking Achievement. London: Sidgewick & Jackson. 1970. p. 285).
A Horizon Book on Vikings claims[citation needed] that some chieftains would hold their berserkers in reserve during a battle. Once a portion of the enemy line appeared to tire or weaken, the chieftains would send the berserkers charging into the enemy ranks to hopefully open a break and even panic the enemy. The book also claimed that while on sea voyages close to land, berserkers sometimes asked to go ashore to find objects on land to wrestle or bash to give vent to their fury.
Botanists have suggested the behaviour might be tied to ingestion of bog myrtle (Myrica gale syn: Gale palustris), a plant that was one of the main spices in alcoholic beverages in Scandinavia. The drawback is that it increases the hangover headache afterwards. Drinking alcoholic beverages spiced with bog myrtle the night before going to battle might have resulted in unusually aggressive behaviour.
The notion that Nordic Vikings used the fly agaric mushroom to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel Ödman in 1784. Ödman based his theory on reports about the use of fly agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers. In addition, the injection of bufotenine from Bufo marinus toad skin into humans was shown to produce similar symptoms to the "Berserker" descriptions. These findings, first examined by Howard Fabing in 1956, were later linked to the induction of zombie characteristics by ethnobotanists in 1983.
A simpler theory attributes the behaviour to drunken rage. It is also possible that berserkers worked themselves into their frenzy through purely psychological processes, perhaps using frenzied rituals and dances. According to Saxo Grammaticus they also drank bear or wolf blood.
Sacred use of fly agaric mushrooms
By Ross Heaven
http://amanitamuscariareport.com/amanita-muscaria-experiences/sacred-use-of-fly-agaric-mushrooms
".... [A British toxicologist tested his theory that] the Zulu War was fought by the indigenous people under intoxication from the sacred mushroom. This had given them, not only superhuman strength and imperviousness to pain, but a sense of fearlessness and their own divine purpose in battle.
....
the fighter who had taken fly-agaric simply flew across the ring as soon as the bell rang, hardly even touching the ground, and threw his opponent so hard that he ended up on the floor outside the ropes. The intoxicated fighter never even broke a sweat and was not breathing at anything above normal levels when his opponent was counted out.
....
In his book, Ploughing The Clouds, however, Peter Lamborn Wilson argues convincingly that fly-agaric is not only the sacred Soma referred to in the Rg Veda, but that it was used in many European countries and was also central to the Irish Keltic tradition of shamanism, which still continues in its basic form, today."
....The Vikings, for example, are said to have ritually ingested [Aminita muscaria] in order to enter the ‘berserker’ state, ready for battle (indeed, the Icelandic name for fly-agaric contains the word, ‘berserk’), just as the Zulus did, according to my toxicologist lunch mate.
Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria)
http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/var012.htm
"Today it can be found scattered across the globe, from places as far north as Alaska and Siberia to areas as far south as Australia, South Africa, and South America."
Aminita muscaria mushroom found in Iceland
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/10991395
(http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu233/solconnection/IMG_2792.jpg)
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The psychoactive drugs-notion re berserking can't be correct as the amanita etc/ cited are only available seasonally and in specific climates/areas. The notion re drunken rage doesn't fit either as people who are blind drunk make appalling fighters due to lack of coordination etc., and we know berserkers to have been incredible fighters.
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The psychoactive drugs-notion re berserking can't be correct as the amanita etc/ cited are only available seasonally and in specific climates/areas. The notion re drunken rage doesn't fit either as people who are blind drunk make appalling fighters due to lack of coordination etc., and we know berserkers to have been incredible fighters.
I'm not as expert in these matters as you apparently are, but my understanding is that they used to dry the mushrooms and thus have some year round. Plus, in warmer climes my guess would be that the shrooms season would be longer, but I don't know for sure. If someone in a cold clime ran out they could even trade for dried shrooms. Since it's habitat is nearly global and since they could be preserved by drying, there would have always been some somewhere (and you can see from that Icelandic shroom that they can get quite large and it apparently doesn't take much for the berserker effect). As I recall from the TV documentary, Zulu warriors would keep the dried mushrooms and other berserker ingredients in a pouch hanging from their necks and use it before battle. As a matter of fact, when dried the shrooms are reportedly more psychoactive (see "Fly Agaric World," http://www.flyagaric-amanita.com--ironically the author there claims that the use of fly agaric by berserkers is considered urban legend, despite believing that use to be quite plausible and apparently being unaware of the increasing numbers of scientists and historians that have been rediscovering its past importance in both battle and shamanic ritual). If you have different info or any questions, let me know.
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It's been claimed that agaric was used in palaeo times for shamanic rituals. The trouble with claims re berserkers using agaric is that there are frequent reports in the Icelandic sagas of berserkers suddenly going into berserker rages for no reason - one would expect a drug to take time to instil the full effect - and none of the sagas mention use of the herb re berserker rages(but they do report the rituals involved in starting up a rage, which have been pointed out as stimulating adrenaline-secretion:-
http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/berserk.htm
. The well-known effect of vastly increased adrenaline levels easily explains berserker rages without the need for drugs to be used. And we've all heard claims re madmen having the strength of 10 men etc., and there are similiar reports of people suddenly finding they had the strength to do superhuman feats(in accidents etc.) they normally wouldn't have been capable of in a more relaxed state.
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...one would expect a drug to take time to instil the full effect - and none of the sagas mention use of the herb re berserker rages(but they do report the rituals involved in starting up a rage, which have been pointed out as stimulating adrenaline-secretion:-
The sources I provided report "rages"/frenzy as one of the possible effects of the dried mushrooms and the effect occurred very quickly in the documentary I saw. Do you have any evidence to support your claim that the effects from mushrooms and other psychoactives took too long to develop to be useful in warfare?
Plus, the evidence for the use of psychoactives by most traditional cultures is overwhelming. Why would they use them only in peacetime and never in warfare?
http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/berserk.htm
The credibility of this source is questionable, as the author, Wayland, states: "And berserks are also spoken of in Iceland, where this mushroom most definitely did not grow," which I have shown to be false (perhaps it was from this unsupported claim in this article that you got the mistaken notion that this was the case?), and Wayland doesn't appear to provide any text-specific references (but it was very long and I didn't have time to read every word, so if I missed any, please let me know) and the bibliography is heavy on Norse mythology and somewhat weak on history and science, with none of the sources I provided (which Wayland may be unaware of). There are other falsehoods in Wayland's article. Plus, Wayland appears to be using his Website writings to promote his brand of "heathen mysticism," rather than engaging in scientific inquiry (see http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/mysticism.htm). He engages in magical/superstitious thinking multiple times in the article you cited and other of the writings at his site. Given your past cited distaste for superstition, I'm surprised you would cite his writings at all. I'm also surprised you would believe some mostly anonymous dude on the Internet, like Wayland, but disbelieve the scientific references I provided.
Plus, Wayland lists these factors:
1) adrenaline
2) excitement
3) belief that they had "the help of the god Odin" [or other god(s)/spirit(s)]
4) "sympathetic invocation of an animal spirit by wearing its skin or acting in a manner consistent with the animal"
5) actual "possession, as by a spirit or god" or other actual intervention of a god/spirit (with the claim that "religion or spirituality" describes "the same things from different points of view" as science)
6) "an ecstatic state" achieved through "various physical techniques" such as meditation, prayer, dancing, hyperventilation, self-cutting, etc.
Factors 1-3 would have been present in ALL warriors of the Zulus, Vikings, Celts, and other cultures that used berserkers. As for #4, animal skins were commonly worn by an ENTIRE Zulu army and not all berserkers necessarily wore them (some accounts speak of proto-European berserkers going bare chested or even nearly naked, for example). So these factors do not explain what made the berserkers so different from the other warriors within an army (why the berserkers displayed more "rage" than the other warriors and supposedly extreme/"superhuman" levels of strength, fearlessness, battle focus, etc.). #5 cannot be tested scientifically and is outside of the realm of science.
As for #6, I have myself cited other non-mushroom factors like drumming and other instrumentation (such as the Celtic carnyx horn), but they in no way disprove a contribution from psychoactive agents like dried mushrooms. As with most historical and legendary phenomena, it is multifactorial. One of the key differences, however, is that the legendary and historical accounts indicate that ALL the warriors at various times used the non-psychoactive factors to whip themselves up into fighting form, but the psychoactives were used only by the berserkers or top shamans (who were to use their alleged magical/spiritual powers to assist the army) by all accounts I've seen. So it's the one factor that seems to distinctly separate the berserkers from non-berserkers. The question isn't answered conclusively and more research is needed, but the evidence does not support eliminating psychoactives as a possible factor. In fact, the accumulating weight of evidence indicates that they probably were one of several factors.
One of the limitations in your research is that you seem to be limiting it to mostly Viking mythology and history. If you expand it to include other cultures and scientific sources, I think you'll encounter much more of what I've been reporting.
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Another interest we share, Tyler, is in the multiregional evolution (MRE) hypothesis vs. the out of Africa (OoA) hypothesis. One question that occurred to me in my readings on this is, if the OoA hypothesis is false, why does "All European and Asian mtDNAs radiate from L3" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1287914/?referer=www.clickfind.com.au), apparently traced back to East Africa dating back to 70,000 years ago? Since the MRE is still taken seriously, I presume its supporters must have an explanation for this.
My own speculation on this question, is leaning towards thinking there was some mixture of the two, as the origins and causes of most things eventually turn out to be very complex--multifactorial rather than unifactorial, although it also seems fairly common for one factor to be much more dominant than others.
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My own speculation on this question, is leaning towards thinking there was some mixture of the two, as the origins and causes of most things eventually turn out to be very complex--multifactorial rather than unifactorial, although it also seems fairly common for one factor to be much more dominant than others.
Intermixture between various apemen species and between modern humans seems logical. The MRE doesn;'t conflict with this notion. At any rate, I am extremely dubious of the genetic claims, given past experiences(such as that red-haired thread).
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The sources I provided report "rages"/frenzy as one of the possible effects of the dried mushrooms and the effect occurred very quickly in the documentary I saw. Do you have any evidence to support your claim that the effects from mushrooms and other psychoactives took too long to develop to be useful in warfare?
Here:-
"Research shows that ibotenic acid will create an hallucinogenic effect in humans, at doses as small as 50mg. The onset of these effects may be rapid or quite slow, ranging from 30 minutes to 2-3 hours, depending on body type, susceptibility, habituation, and the circumstances of ingestion." taken from:-
http://amanitamuscariareport.com/amanita-muscaria-experiences/sacred-use-of-fly-agaric-mushrooms
As I pointed out, previously, in many instances as mentioned in the sagas, Viking berserkers would soemtimes suddenly enter into berserker rages for no reason. While this can easily be explained by a sudden rise in adrenaline, drugs of any kind would take longer to take effect.
Plus, the evidence for the use of psychoactives by most traditional cultures is overwhelming. Why would they use them only in peacetime and never in warfare?
Because psychoactives have different effects on people depending on the individual(re body-size, genetics etc.), taking longer to take effect for some individuals than others, because amanita mushrooms can't be easily cultivated:-
http://www.amanitashop.com/amanita-cultivation.htm
because the effects vary from individual to individual, depending on potency of the brew etc.It's one thing to use amanita in carefully-prepared shamanic rituals, quite another to mass-produce them for whole berserker units of warriors.
The credibility of this source is questionable, as the author, Wayland, states: "And berserks are also spoken of in Iceland, where this mushroom most definitely did not grow," which I have shown to be false (perhaps it was from this unsupported claim in this article that you got the mistaken notion that this was the case?),
Granted, he was inaccurate there. My own take on this was that Iceland, like many islands has always been notorious for its lack of native trees and mushrooms thrive in woodland more than elsewhere.
and Wayland doesn't appear to provide any text-specific references (but it was very long and I didn't have time to read every word, so if I missed any, please let me know) and the bibliography is heavy on Norse mythology and somewhat weak on history and science, with none of the sources I provided (which Wayland may be unaware of). There are other falsehoods in Wayland's article. Plus, Wayland appears to be using his Website writings to promote his brand of "heathen mysticism," rather than engaging in scientific inquiry (see http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/mysticism.htm). He engages in magical/superstitious thinking multiple times in the article you cited and other of the writings at his site. Given your past cited distaste for superstition, I'm surprised you would cite his writings at all. I'm also surprised you would believe some mostly anonymous dude on the Internet, like Wayland, but disbelieve the scientific references I provided.
Nothing wrong with religion, I'm a religious atheist myself. I'm merely against idealism(which is one of the main flaws of anarcho-primitivism. And he does make a very good point that the sagas do not mention psychoactive substances used in warfare but do mention the rituals involved. The notion re psychoactives being used was a very recent phenomenon, no doubt espoused by a close-minded Enlightenment scientist who was uncomfortable with claims that berserkers could use unscientific, religious trances means to induce in themselves their berserker rages:-
"The notion that Nordic Vikings used the fly agaric mushroom to produce their berserker rages was first suggested by the Swedish professor Samuel Ödman in 1784. Ödman based his theory on reports about the use of fly agaric among Siberian shamans. The notion has become widespread since the 19th century, but no contemporary sources mention this use or anything similar in their description of berserkers." taken from:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker
Plus, Wayland lists these factors:
1) adrenaline
2) excitement
3) belief that they had "the help of the god Odin" [or other god(s)/spirit(s)]
4) "sympathetic invocation of an animal spirit by wearing its skin or acting in a manner consistent with the animal"
5) actual "possession, as by a spirit or god" or other actual intervention of a god/spirit (with the claim that "religion or spirituality" describes "the same things from different points of view" as science)
6) "an ecstatic state" achieved through "various physical techniques" such as meditation, prayer, dancing, hyperventilation, self-cutting, etc.
Factors 1-3 would have been present in ALL warriors of the Zulus, Vikings, Celts, and other cultures that used berserkers. As for #4, animal skins were commonly worn by an ENTIRE Zulu army and not all berserkers necessarily wore them (some accounts speak of proto-European berserkers going bare chested or even nearly naked, for example). So these factors do not explain what made the berserkers so different from the other warriors within an army (why the berserkers displayed more "rage" than the other warriors and supposedly extreme/"superhuman" levels of strength, fearlessness, battle focus, etc.). #5 cannot be tested scientifically and is outside of the realm of science.
As for #6, I have myself cited other non-mushroom factors like drumming and other instrumentation (such as the Celtic carnyx horn), but they in no way disprove a contribution from psychoactive agents like dried mushrooms. As with most historical and legendary phenomena, it is multifactorial. One of the key differences, however, is that the legendary and historical accounts indicate that ALL the warriors at various times used the non-psychoactive factors to whip themselves up into fighting form, but the psychoactives were used only by the berserkers or top shamans (who were to use their alleged magical/spiritual powers to assist the army) by all accounts I've seen. So it's the one factor that seems to distinctly separate the berserkers from non-berserkers. The question isn't answered conclusively and more research is needed, but the evidence does not support eliminating psychoactives as a possible factor. In fact, the accumulating weight of evidence indicates that they probably were one of several factors.
Well, at least you do accept the fact that rituals were used to whip them into a frenzy. As for the psychoactives aspect it's largely unproven. But, more importantly, I've occasionally seen people in berserker-like rages(in various brawls and the like) and these were not induced by alcohol or psychoactives but pure blind rage clearly induced by massive surges of adrenaline.
One of the limitations in your research is that you seem to be limiting it to mostly Viking mythology and history. If you expand it to include other cultures and scientific sources, I think you'll encounter much more of what I've been reporting.
On the contrary, I have already found more evidence supporting the ritual-based claims, such as the example of running amok(mainly linked to psychological aspects):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok
As for the Vikings, they are far more well-known for their specialised berserker battalions than any other culture so they need to be a primary focus in an y such berserker-related discussion.
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...As I pointed out, previously, in many instances as mentioned in the sagas, Viking berserkers would soemtimes suddenly enter into berserker rages for no reason. While this can easily be explained by a sudden rise in adrenaline, drugs of any kind would take longer to take effect.
Yes, but did the witnesses claim that they knew the berserkers hadn't taken any stimulants earlier in a shamanic ritual such as a healing session? Besides, remember that the Vikings were not the only ones who employed berserkers in battle, so you shouldn't limit your research to Norse sagas.
because the effects vary from individual to individual, depending on potency of the brew etc.It's one thing to use amanita in carefully-prepared shamanic rituals, quite another to mass-produce them for whole berserker units of warriors.
The Zulus are known to have carried the dried mushroom to war in small pouches around their necks. Again, it didn't take much to work, so no mass production was necessary. All shamans as well as berserkers had the stuff, and since many people in HG tribes had some shamanic ability, the stuff was very common and spanned much of the globe. I really recommend you check out the documentary if you ever get the chance. You'll see I'm not making this stuff up.
Nothing wrong with religion, I'm a religious atheist myself.
I'm not making any point about there being something wrong with religion, just saying there's not way to directly test supernatural claims like interventions by gods or spirits scientifically.
I'm merely against idealism(which is one of the main flaws of anarcho-primitivism. And he does make a very good point that the sagas do not mention psychoactive substances used in warfare but do mention the rituals involved.
Yes, that is interesting, although it is more an absence of evidence than a refutation of fly agaric. Again, there is more direct evidence outside of the Norse sagas. I could see how you would hold the view you have if you limit yourself to those sources. There is evidence re: fly agaric being used for multiple purposes among Zulus, Siberians, Celts and others. If it truly has the effects that the study found, then it would be strange if no one took advantage of its benefits. Heck, I sure would if I were a Zulu, Celtic or Norse war chief. Why wouldn't I?
Well, at least you do accept the fact that rituals were used to whip them into a frenzy.
I don't understand why you seem to want to narrow so much down to one or two causes and seem to have some reticence about including herbal factors. I usually find that mysterious phenomena are multifactorial, although one factor may predominate. What exactly would be so bad if the Zulus, Celts, Siberians and Norse did use fly agaric for military purposes? Would that somehow undercut the spirituality or purity of their battles? Given that the mushroom was apparently mainly used in spiritual rituals, I don't understand how it could be seen that way.
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The simple fact is that berserkers were a routine way of life in Scandinavia at the time, so any routine use of psychoactives whatsoever would have been mentioned. And like I said, the time taken to experience the effects, the differing potency of of each individual's herbs and so on would make it unreliable at best. Also, searching for agaric mushrooms in the wild and finding enough to supply whole war-bands of Viking berserkers all-year round doesn't make sense either.
Another point is that modern soldiers(in Vietnam etc.) have sometimes mentioned going into this adrenaline-induced berserker state while in battle. And they couldn't all have been on drugs.
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What exactly would be so bad if the Zulus, Celts, Siberians and Norse did use fly agaric for military purposes? Would that somehow undercut the spirituality or purity of their battles? Given that the mushroom was apparently mainly used in spiritual rituals, I don't understand how it could be seen that way.
Odhin is God for those who seek wisdom; a drug-induced state does not seem wise, and what little I know of North Europeans indicates that they valued sharp wits in battle.
What I get from Skallagrimssons epistle is the simultaneous operation of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Fascinating, and if possible would solve a lot of our problems.
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Maybe they initially used psychoactive substances to ignite that state and than anchor it somehow (through rituals), in order to access it when it was needed.
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Maybe they initially used psychoactive substances to ignite that state and than anchor it somehow (through rituals), in order to access it when it was needed.
Don't see how. I mean psychoactive substances have a different effect on consciousness than simple release of hormones.
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^ It's possible. I was thinking more along the lines of this: http://www.23nlpeople.com/brain/Amygdala.php
Of course they did could have had the state recollection happening using rituals.
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Odhin is God for those who seek wisdom; a drug-induced state does not seem wise, and what little I know of North Europeans indicates that they valued sharp wits in battle.
What I get from Skallagrimssons epistle is the simultaneous operation of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Fascinating, and if possible would solve a lot of our problems.
I don't know what the answer is for sure, but I'm not convinced that it can't be Amanita muscaria, sorry. The presence of the Aminita muscaria mushroom in all Nordic lands (including Iceland) and much of the globe, their enormous size, the fact that its effects can be obtained simply by drinking the urine of someone else who has taken it (thus making it available to even more warriors and shamans), the fact that not all the warriors of an army had to use it--just the special berserker shock troops--the absence of a conclusive alternative explanation beyond speculation about non-assisted meditation and prayer, the acknowledgement by some of the proud Zulu people that their berserking warriors used fly agaric, and its spiritual use in respected rituals by Zulu, Siberian, Celtic, and Zarathrustan shamans, the possibility that it may even be the "Soma" referred to extensively in the Rigveda sacred text, and the fact that people still use it today to expand perception and even call it "Red Odin" (Red Angels of Soma, http://www.somashamans.com--they don't appear particularly credible, but more credible sources have come to the same conclusion...see "The Soma of the Rig Veda: What Was It?" http://www.jstor.org/pss/600096, by R. Gordon Wasson, author of Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality and M. S. Smith, "Amanita Muscaria as the Plant/God Soma of the Rigveda"), are too much evidence for me to rule out the possibility that it may have been one of several factors in the fearless and seemingly supernaturally strong shock troups of multiple traditional cultures.
Fly agaric reportedly does not normally addle the brain. On the contrary, most scientific and experienced shaman reports indicate the opposite--that it usually focuses the brain and increases perception (especially when trained how to use it properly by a knowledgeable shaman):
"The chemical, present in fly agaric -- a mushroom that can attract and kill flies -- is said to induce a state of expanded perception in those who ingest it." ("Day of the Zulu," http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_zulu/clues.html)
Although, the battle focus can reportedly become so powerful that some legendary accounts indicate that a berserker might have to be doused with water to stop fighting.
So we can agree to disagree. It's been an interesting discussion, though, thanks.
"We have drunk Soma [fly agaric tea?] and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.
Now what may foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man's deception?"
--Rigveda (8.48.3)
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Without a common perception of who what where when why a particular God is, we are like dog chasing its tail.
When the Zulu encountered the sickly and shrunken cousins of the Norse, the Zulu got their head handed to them, so not a fair example. I don't think there are any.
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this discussion is particularly interesting to me because it seems that you guys have not had experiences with eating mushrooms(not the culinary type!)
i must say that any time i have eaten psilocybin mushrooms i have definitely communed with gods, seen the light and been delighted with a feeling of endless energy. these feelings have definitely affirmed multiple times by myself and friends. i have also eaten an EXTREMELY small amount of poisonous amanita mushrooms and although i thought i was dying(maybe i was, high fever for weeks, extreme spinal pain and headache) my perception of vibration(light and sound) was so ridiculously animated i can only imagine if i would have had the heightened amount of energy from non poisonous mushroom and also this almost clairvoyent perception of vibration i might have been invincible
having said all of this mushroom hold my highest regards as pathways to enlightenment when they are used with respect and prudence , which is not to say that it cannot be attained without their use
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One of the things that really pisses me off is the absurd notion within a part of the RVAF community that we are all negatively affected by trace amounts of heavy metals. This heavy-metals scam is constantly used by PETA-activists and the like to try to get us not to eat seafood, and it's totally bogus in the light of the very long-term Seychelles study and other sources I've cited. What is truly satanic , though, is that this whole bogus theory re mercury etc. has caused tragedy and false hope among parents with children born with various conditions like autism, giving them to erroneously believe that expensive treatment re chelation or whatever will eventually cure their child's problems. There was a recent case, mentioned in today's Daily Telegraph, about a single mother who'd been misled into believing that her daughter could be cured of her cerebral palsy by getting rid of some mythical heavy metals in her body, causing tragedy.
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Another thing that irks me is the dreadful presence of supermarkets, as mentioned in another thread. I urge people to avoid buying food from supermarkets as much as humanly possible as you'll otherwise be ensuring that your food-choices/variety in the future will be greatly reduced. Indeed, it's even a good idea to boycott the larger, grassfed organic farms as they often have much lower standards than one would expect.
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One of the rather less appealing aspects of past hunter-gatherer tribes was their tendency to have very unpleasant rite-of-puberty rituals, the most common one being male circumcision. Here is a very funny(and yet disturbing) description of the various numerous absurd excuses given over the years by physicians who wanted to promote male circumcision as a common practice(the only one that has any truth to it is the claim re blunting sensitivity):-
"There is no benefit to circumcision. It was started as a means to desensitize the penis to prevent boys from masturbating. Many false benefits have been claimed in an attempt to keep the practice alive. Male Circumcision is now illegal in most European countries because it is sexual child abuse.
CLAIMS OF REASONS FOR CIRCUMCISION IN THE USA (history):
1832: prevents nocturnal emissions
1845: prevents masturbation
1855: prevents syphilis
1865: cures epilepsy
1870: cures epilepsy
1870: prevents spinal paralysis
1871: Jews are immune to masturbation
1873: cures bed wetting
1875: cures curvature of the spine
1875: cures paralysis of the bladder
1875: cures clubfoot
1879: cures nocturnal seminal emissions
1879: curse abdominal neuralgia
1881: cures eye problems
1886: prevents crossed eyes
1888: prevents masturbating
1890: cures blindness
1890: cures deafness
1890: cures dumbness
1891: "foreskin constitutes a harbor for filth"
1891: "foreskin is a constant source of irritation"
1891: conduces to masturbation
1891: adds to the difficulties of sexual continence
1894: circumcising Blacks prevents them from raping White women
1894: cures urinary incontinence
1894: cures rectal incontinence
1900: needed to desensitize the penis
1901: needed to desensitize the penis
1902: foreskin causes epilepsy
1914: Dr. Abraham L Wolbarst demands compulsory circumcision
1914: prevents tuberculosis
1926: prevents penile cancer.
1930: Dr. Norton Henry Bare claims that he has cured a boy of epilepsy by circumcising him
1932: prevents penile cancer
1935: promotes chastity
1941: blunts sexual sensitivity
1941: foreskin must be forcibly retracted and scrubbed daily
1942: prevents prostate cancer
1949: prevents venereal disease
1949: prevents cancer of the tongue
1949: elimination of circumcisions in the United Kingdom
1951: Abraham Ravich invents the falsehood that circumcision prevents cervical cancer in women.
1953: creates immunity to all physical illness
1953: creates immunity to all mental illness
1954: prevents cervical cancer in women
1969: cures masturbation
1969: cures nervousness
1971: prevents cancer of the bladder
1971: prevents cancer of the rectum
1973: "all who disagree with circumcision are mentally ill"
1985: prevents urinary tract infections
1986: prevents AIDS
1988: prevents strept throat
1989: Edgar J. Schoen declares circumcision is necessary
1991: Edgar J. Schoen tries and fails to convince European countries to institute mass circumcision.
1991: Aaron J. Fink declares mass circumcision is necessary to prevent sand from getting under soldiers' foreskins.
1993: Gerald N. Weiss declares that Langerhands cells in the foreskin lead to HIV infection.
1997: Edgar J. Schoen tries and fails once again to convince European countries to institute mass circumcision.
2003: Edgar J. Schoen steps up pressure on American Academy of Pediatrics to reverse its policy on circumcision, claiming that circumcision prevents AIDS."
Source(s):
http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.o…
http://www.nocirc.org/
http://www.circumstitions.com/
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/
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Sorry to change the subject but I am still trying to make my/a picture of human existence with exercise and paleo digestion
Today, I'm eating a very large bag of raw mussels. Tomorrow, some raw marrow(2 bones of many inches length(8?) and maybe a little raw wild hare.
Raw marrow is very satiating and I eat a lot of it. As for raw mussels, I eat something like 100-200 of them in one go(over 4 hours), and, no, they work fine re digestion.
Can you remember how much and when (most water during the day or with/after the meal) you drank on both days? Do you drink more because others say we should or do you only drink when thirsty? Do you ever feel bloated and do you believe that your "discharge" is normal (what ever this may be?)? Don't you ever have runny "discharges" after eating just mussels and the next day just marrow?
I still do not understand why muscle fat gives me a "wider" intestine and can even make me feel sick at night (perhaps also because of the water - I drink many, many hours after a meal; thirsty or not!) and suet makes me feel cut/tight and I never feel sick at night.
I feel more than you because of riding, running and swimming; I can cheat - it all comes back in the end -[
Perhaps you and others would rid a different journey with different activities? Do you run?
Nicola
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I drink a little more mineral water than I need re thirst. Other than that, I have no digestive issues re raw meats/raw mussels or anything else(ecept non-rawpalaeo foods, of course).
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One of the rather less appealing aspects of past hunter-gatherer tribes was their tendency to have very unpleasant rite-of-puberty rituals, the most common one being male circumcision.
AFAIK only one group ever did that - the stated reason was to be visibly different from all others after death, so that their myopic God could sort them out.
Not paleo.
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I drink a little more mineral water than I need re thirst. Other than that, I have no digestive issues re raw meats/raw mussels or anything else(ecept non-rawpalaeo foods, of course).
Thanks for all the detail - you shouldn't go to so much trouble...you could have just mentioned "I drank/drink about... the day / after the meal. I am asking because you mentioned once that on some days you don't drink!
Forget it; I'm Swiss and reading your quote about the Italien vs. the Swiss...
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One of the rather less appealing aspects of past hunter-gatherer tribes was their tendency to have very unpleasant rite-of-puberty rituals, the most common one being male circumcision. Here is a very funny(and yet disturbing) description of the various numerous absurd excuses given over the years by physicians who wanted to promote male circumcision as a common practice(the only one that has any truth to it is the claim re blunting sensitivity):-
"There is no benefit to circumcision. It was started as a means to desensitize the penis to prevent boys from masturbating. Many false benefits have been claimed in an attempt to keep the practice alive. Male Circumcision is now illegal in most European countries because it is sexual child abuse.
CLAIMS OF REASONS FOR CIRCUMCISION IN THE USA (history):
1832: prevents nocturnal emissions
1845: prevents masturbation
1855: prevents syphilis
1865: cures epilepsy
1870: cures epilepsy
1870: prevents spinal paralysis
1871: Jews are immune to masturbation
1873: cures bed wetting
1875: cures curvature of the spine
1875: cures paralysis of the bladder
1875: cures clubfoot
1879: cures nocturnal seminal emissions
1879: curse abdominal neuralgia
1881: cures eye problems
1886: prevents crossed eyes
1888: prevents masturbating
1890: cures blindness
1890: cures deafness
1890: cures dumbness
1891: "foreskin constitutes a harbor for filth"
1891: "foreskin is a constant source of irritation"
1891: conduces to masturbation
1891: adds to the difficulties of sexual continence
1894: circumcising Blacks prevents them from raping White women
1894: cures urinary incontinence
1894: cures rectal incontinence
1900: needed to desensitize the penis
1901: needed to desensitize the penis
1902: foreskin causes epilepsy
1914: Dr. Abraham L Wolbarst demands compulsory circumcision
1914: prevents tuberculosis
1926: prevents penile cancer.
1930: Dr. Norton Henry Bare claims that he has cured a boy of epilepsy by circumcising him
1932: prevents penile cancer
1935: promotes chastity
1941: blunts sexual sensitivity
1941: foreskin must be forcibly retracted and scrubbed daily
1942: prevents prostate cancer
1949: prevents venereal disease
1949: prevents cancer of the tongue
1949: elimination of circumcisions in the United Kingdom
1951: Abraham Ravich invents the falsehood that circumcision prevents cervical cancer in women.
1953: creates immunity to all physical illness
1953: creates immunity to all mental illness
1954: prevents cervical cancer in women
1969: cures masturbation
1969: cures nervousness
1971: prevents cancer of the bladder
1971: prevents cancer of the rectum
1973: "all who disagree with circumcision are mentally ill"
1985: prevents urinary tract infections
1986: prevents AIDS
1988: prevents strept throat
1989: Edgar J. Schoen declares circumcision is necessary
1991: Edgar J. Schoen tries and fails to convince European countries to institute mass circumcision.
1991: Aaron J. Fink declares mass circumcision is necessary to prevent sand from getting under soldiers' foreskins.
1993: Gerald N. Weiss declares that Langerhands cells in the foreskin lead to HIV infection.
1997: Edgar J. Schoen tries and fails once again to convince European countries to institute mass circumcision.
2003: Edgar J. Schoen steps up pressure on American Academy of Pediatrics to reverse its policy on circumcision, claiming that circumcision prevents AIDS."
Source(s):
http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.o…
http://www.nocirc.org/
http://www.circumstitions.com/
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/
Filipino women are brainwashed the same to require that her man be circumsized. So any sane Filipino teenage boy who wants to get a woman will undergo circumcision... besides that, his own MOTHER requires that her sons be circumsized. Filipinas are into cleanliness. No "kupal" -- that cheesy smelly yucky stuff... Circumcision guarantees no "kupal"... and calling someone "kupal" is a swear word.
What can I say, Philippines is a circumcision crazy country.
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Filipino women are brainwashed the same to require that her man be circumsized. So any sane Filipino teenage boy who wants to get a woman will undergo circumcision... besides that, his own MOTHER requires that her sons be circumsized. Filipinas are into cleanliness. No "kupal" -- that cheesy smelly yucky stuff... Circumcision guarantees no "kupal"... and calling someone "kupal" is a swear word.
What can I say, Philippines is a circumcision crazy country.
It's odd because other than the Muslim minority, the Phillipines is supposed to be mostly Roman Catholic and the latter frown heavily on the practice.
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Thanks for all the detail - you shouldn't go to so much trouble...you could have just mentioned "I drank/drink about... the day / after the meal. I am asking because you mentioned once that on some days you don't drink!
True enough, occasionally there are days where I don't drink at all.
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It's odd because other than the Muslim minority, the Phillipines is supposed to be mostly Roman Catholic and the latter frown heavily on the practice.
Muslims and Christian and otherwise Filipinos are for circumcision. It's not a religious issue. It's a cultural hygiene issue. "Kupal" - the smell, the cheesiness - is a big big deal. Much like Filipinos taking a shower 2x a day and taking a shower before and after sex.
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It's odd because other than the Muslim minority, the Phillipines is supposed to be mostly Roman Catholic and the latter frown heavily on the practice.
Interesting. I was raised a Catholic and learned the Catechism, but hadn't heard of opposition to circumcision from among the Roman Catholic hierarchy until you mentioned it. According to Wikipedia, the 11th Council of Florence did denounce it in 1442, possibly in response to Coptic Christians. However...
"The modern Roman Catholic Church maintains a neutral position on the practice of non-religious circumcision, and has never addressed the issue of infant circumcision specifically."[27] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_male_circumcision#The_Roman_Catholic_Church
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Oh, I agree that the RC Church hasn't concentrated heavily on the issue(especially not recently, as they don't want to upset rival religions). However, it's no coincidence that the US rates for male circumcision have been dropping because of recent immigration of Catholic Hispanics in the last few decades, for example. Also, the modern trend in the last 150 years re recommending male circumcision re blunting sensitivity etc. was mainly a Protestant Anglo-Saxon concept.
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Ah the snow has fallen again in London, like it did last February as I recall. London is lucky to get any snow at all, most winters, so this is most welcome. I feel so much more alive in winter than in summer and sometimes wish that that theory that we're entering a new Ice-Age might be true.
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You are fortunate right now. It's unseasonably warm by me, no wind or anything. It is a little cool, but no where near snow, and little to no humidity.
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The Daily Telegraph had an article describing how grains were eaten by hominids up to c. 100,000 years ago. If this is the case, then we have an extra argument to use against cooked-foodists. After all, cooked-foodists have been stating for ages that since cooking was invented at least 250,000 years ago(or plus, depending on the advocate) that we must now be fully adapted to cooked foods. Yet, it is largely accepted, albeit very reluctantly, that humans haven't really adapted to grains or dairy re statistics, so if grains were consumed for a 100,000 years and we still have people with gluten-intolerance(most of them hidden and not with specifically diagnosed symptoms), then it can be just as easily and convincingly claimed that we haven't really adapted to cooked foods either, despite eating them for a couple of hundred thousand years. I'll mention this point next time I update rawpaleodiet.com
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Good point, Tyler. As the dates of so many things keep getting pushed back farther and farther, and as I learn more about nonhuman animals like gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, tarsiers, giant pandas, wolves, etc., it's looking to me like it's not so much when a species first starts eating a food, it's how long it's been eating it as a staple and how well adapted its physiology is to digesting it.
Some foods seem harder for certain species to adapt to than others. For example, some plant foods appear to be very difficult for carnivores and certain omnivores to adapt to. Giant pandas have been eating bamboo for two million years, and its ancestor ate bamboo before that ("Remains Of Earliest Giant Panda Discovered," http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070618174710.htm), but giant pandas are still are not well adapted to it. So a bamboo diet is not a healthy diet for them, despite eating it for millions of years. Another example is the difficulty that humans have had adapting to grains, although grains have never been eaten by humans in general to the extent that giant pandas eat bamboo.
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Thanks for mentioning that bit about giant pandas, it's very insightful and wrecks the whole theory re length of time "proving" that a diet is healthy. I hope you don't mind - I'm going to mention this on the paleofood list along with the point re grains being consumed 105,000 years ago etc.
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Well, I am now planning to attend a traditional(pre-Vatican II) Latin Mass this Christmas at some nearby Roman Catholic Church, primarily for tradition's sake, given that it is Christmas. You see, I can't really do the usual Christmas thing such as eating cooked turkey, Christmas Pudding(I had an experimental organic(no veg-oil etc.) Christmas Pudding a year or two ago and I vomited it all out). I did have a whole raw turkey and whole raw goose in my early rawpalaeo years over the whole Christmas/New Year period but, quite frankly, the raw turkey generally tasted very dry and I'm not fond of domesticated fowl given those 100% grain-filled diets. And I don't feel too comfortable, just now, in replacing the dodgy traditional Christmas foods with alcohol of any kind.
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Thanks for mentioning that bit about giant pandas, it's very insightful and wrecks the whole theory re length of time "proving" that a diet is healthy. I hope you don't mind - I'm going to mention this on the paleofood list along with the point re grains being consumed 105,000 years ago etc.
You're welcome. Another good example of incomplete adaptation after millions of years involves chimpanzees and fruit. Despite eating fruit for millions of years, chimpanzees in the wild still get significantly more dental caries than wild primates that eat less fruit:
Tooth Decay in Chimps
From Wild Health By Cindy Engel:
"Kenneth Glander, director of primate research at Duke Primate Center, studied the teeth of more than 950 mantled howler monkeys in South America and found a complete absence of cavities and gum disease. These monkeys not only have a low-sugar diet, they also eat a great quantity of cashew pedicels (Anacardium occidentale)-which contain the phenolic compounds anacardic acid and cardol that are active against tooth-decay bacteria. This diet of low sugar and high phenols may be helping to protect the monkeys against tooth decay. Phenols such as tannins are common in many plants, and are known to inhibit the growth of Streptococcus mutans, a main protagonist in tooth decay.
Chimpanzees, which eat far more sugary fruit than howler monkeys, suffer from both tooth decay and gum disease. To cope with this ailment, they chew on antibacterial barks-which local people use to keep teeth healthy-and inspect and clean each other's teeth. In captivity, one chimpanzee was even seen to pry out the bad teeth of another by means of a simple wooden lever she had made."
(See also Dental pathologies in ten free-ranging chimpanzees from Gombe National Park, Tanzania (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/110482604/abstract) and EPIDEMIOLOGY OF DENTAL DISEASE (http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/11_1Epidemiology.htm))
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Some foods seem harder for certain species to adapt to than others. For example, some plant foods appear to be very difficult for carnivores and certain omnivores to adapt to. Giant pandas have been eating bamboo for two million years, and its ancestor ate bamboo before that ("Remains Of Earliest Giant Panda Discovered," http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070618174710.htm), but giant pandas are still are not well adapted to it. So a bamboo diet is not a healthy diet for them, despite eating it for millions of years. Another example is the difficulty that humans have had adapting to grains, although grains have never been eaten by humans in general to the extent that giant pandas eat bamboo.
Where is the evidence that giant pandas are still not adapted to a bamboo diet?
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Not fully adapted. Emphasis on the fully. I've posted on their multiple issues elsewhere:
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/welcoming-commitee/hola/msg20095/#msg20095
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/health-and-climate/msg20544/#msg20544
I used to think that 250,000 years would probably be enough time for humans to adapt to cooked foods, but after learning about how chimps still get cavities from fruit-heavy diets after eating them for 6 million years, and giant pandas still suffer deleterious effects from a 99% bamboo diet after more than 2 million years, I must admit that Geoff may well be right about humans not being fully adapted to cooking--and it also would explain why I and others here seem to benefit from a raw diet.
Certain dietary changes seem easier to adapt to than others. Going from omnivores that ate mostly fruits and insects to meat-heavy omnivorous hunters of megafauna (which could possibly even be categorized as carnivorous, depending on where one draws the physiological and dietary lines), doesn't seem to have been as difficult an adaptation as that experienced by the carnivore giant pandas and their ancestors. It's not that surprising, given that the change was less radical and plants have built-in defense mechanisms that involve toxins and some (like bamboo) are very fibrous and difficult to digest, whereas the defense mechanism of animals is their teeth, claws, mental power, etc. (once they're dead, you've neutralized the defense mechanisms of most of them).
Scientists recently figured out what appears to be the key reason why giant pandas eat 99% bamboo despite it not being optimal for their physiology--they lack some genes for tasting meat:
Panda genome unveiled
DNA clues suggest little inbreeding, surprise on the bamboo diet
By Laura Sanders
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/50736/title/Panda_genome_unveiled
.... The panda genome gives clues to understanding the panda’s strict bamboo diet. It turns out that pandas have mutations in two copies of a taste gene called T1R1, which encodes a protein that senses the savory taste of meats, cheeses, broths and other high-protein foods. These mutations may have robbed pandas of the ability to taste meat, pushing them toward their bamboo diet, the researchers suggest.
Pandas possess all the requisite genes for digesting meat, but none of the genes required for digesting bamboo, Wang and colleagues found. The researchers guess that pandas rely entirely on communities of gut microbes for extracting nutrients from bamboo.
So, just as it appears that it takes more time to adapt to new plants in the diet than new meats, my guess is that it also takes longer to adapt to cooking (particularly high-heat cooking), if full adaptation is even possible.
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As for the chimpanzees, it might be that they're more adapted to a gorilla-like leaves and veg diet than a fruit-based one. Though, I don't think dental caries is, in itself, a sign of ill-health in general. Eating fruit might lead to dental caries but not ill-health as such. For example, those other primates seem to have found a way round this via eating those cashew pedicels.
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As for the chimpanzees, it might be that they're more adapted to a gorilla-like leaves and veg diet than a fruit-based one. Though, I don't think dental caries is, in itself, a sign of ill-health in general. Eating fruit might lead to dental caries but not ill-health as such. For example, those other primates seem to have found a way round this via eating those cashew pedicels.
Yes, leaves do seem to be less of a problem for chimps and other primates than fruits, though even with leaves there is evidence of less than complete adaptation, for they need to periodically detox with clay, charcoal, etc., due to the buildup of natural insecticides in the body that develops over time from eating leaves.
I agree that dental caries don't prove general "ill health," and I believe that wild chimps are generally rather healthy. I was only speaking about dental health. I think we can all agree that dental caries are not a good thing. Even after 6 million years of eating fruits, chimps don't appear to be completely and absolutely adapted to eating fruit, else why would they get significantly more dental caries when eating it than primates who eat less fruit?
You raise an interesting point about general health and it would be interesting to investigate whether there are any other long-term deleterious effects of heavy fruit consumption on chimps, since poor dental health is associated with other health problems among humans (such as the recent connection made between gum disease and cardiovascular disease). After all, evolutionary adaptation only requires that a species live long enough to propagate itself, not that a species must become completely adapted to a food to the point that there are no long-term side effects that might shorten life at some point beyond reproductive age.
In other words, it seems to be effectively impossible for primates to completely adapt to digesting fruits and leaves without using adaptive practices to offset deleterious effects, like using tree oils to kill cary-promoting oral bacteria caused by heavy fruit eating and consuming clay or charcoal to offset a buildup of toxins from eating leaves. The idea promoted by many vegans and vegetarians that there is a "perfect" diet for humans based on that of chimps or gorillas which does not have any side effects, does not appear to apply even to the chimps and gorillas themselves.
The only food regularly eaten by wild chimps, monkeys and gorillas that I have not seen any side effects reported about is insects and other small creatures (like lizards, grubs, etc.), and even that could be attributed to the relatively small quantities eaten. The search for a symptom-free, "perfect" vegan/vegetarian diet that does not require dental care or detox seems to be a vain one, at least in the case of all primates, including the non-human ones.
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Yes, leaves do seem to be less of a problem for chimps and other primates than fruits, though even with leaves there is evidence of less than complete adaptation, for they need to periodically detox with clay, charcoal, etc., due to the buildup of natural insecticides in the body that develops over time from eating leaves.
Here's a paper on how rare geophagia is among mountain gorillas, for example:-
http://www.springerlink.com/content/entl338361570333/
The very fact that the mountain gorillas mentioned above that did practice geophagia only did so c. 5 or 6 times a year makes it clear there were other reasons associated with its consumption than the claim re dealing with antinutrients.
Even if one takes the antinutrient-claim at face-value, one also has to consider that herbivores by their very nature are at some stage going to eat a poisonous plant other than what they're used to, and then they would need to have clay, not necessarily on a regular basis. I mean, primates are definitely not like that parrot species Attenborough described which primarily eat only highly toxic plants and HAVE to eat clay immediately afterwards.
I agree that dental caries don't prove general "ill health," and I believe that wild chimps are generally rather healthy. I was only speaking about dental health. I think we can all agree that dental caries are not a good thing. Even after 6 million years of eating fruits, chimps don't appear to be completely and absolutely adapted to eating fruit, else why would they get significantly more dental caries when eating it than primates who eat less fruit?
It was pointed out that the other primates simply used different, perhaps more effective methods to counter the dental caries(re mention of cashew antibacterial agents). I don't therefore see any real link between dental caries and maladaptation to a fruit-diet. Maybe dental caries is something to expect for any frugivore with teeth, eventually.
Indeed, sites such as this one appear to indicate that dental caries is a standard for natural frugivores:-
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0003996904002031
You raise an interesting point about general health and it would be interesting to investigate whether there are any other long-term deleterious effects of heavy fruit consumption on chimps, since poor dental health is associated with other health problems among humans (such as the recent connection made between gum disease and cardiovascular disease).
I have very serious doubts about such research links. I mean multiple papers have been made citing a link between good health and chocolate-consumption and similiar dodgy stuff without any genuine evidence to support such vague links.
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...mountain gorillas mentioned above that did practice geophagia only did so c. 5 or 5 times a year makes it clear there were other reasons associated with its consumption than the claim re dealing with antinutrients.
I think the use of the term geophagia by that 1990 article is a bit out of date. Geophagia is sometimes used to describe an eating disorder, whereas I am more specifically discussing the natural practice of animals and people in the wild who eat clays and soils for beneficial purposes, rather than out of a pica disorder. Scientists now generally use the term geophagy for the latter.
I provide more up-to-date sources below that better reveal the importance of clay consumption among primates and other animals, but 5 to 6 times a year sounds reasonable to me for some mountain gorillas, especially when combined with the clay-containing termites that mountain gorillas feed on and other detoxicant sources (and the groups that don't eat clay directly may eat more of the clay-eating termites or other detoxifying and/or mineral-rich foods/materials). The tiny levels of toxins take a while to accumulate to toxic levels in the massive bodies of gorillas. I don't find anything I disagree with in that source--though I can only access the first page. On the contrary, it appears to support what I have been trying to say:
"Clay particles in ingested soil can absorb dietary toxins and aid in their excretion and can have an effect on gut pH that is favourable to symbiotic bacteria (Oates, 1978), although they can also chelate metal ions and prevent their adsorption (Robbins, 1983). ....
Mountain gorillas (Gorilla gorilla beringei) studied at the Karisoke Research Centre in Rwanda's Parc National des Volcans have been observed to eat sediment that they dig from slightly weathered regolith (mass wasted deposits) (Fossey & Harcourt, 1977; Fossey, 1983; Watts, 1984). Not all study groups or individuals have been seen to eat such sediment. Those groups that eat sediment do so only five to six times per year, so that geophagia accounts for only a tiny fraction of dietary intake (Watts, 1984). Karisoke Group 5, however...."
There is also this:
"Chimpanzees select fungus-growing termites high in protein, energy and manganese, while gorillas select soil-feeding termites high in iron and ash with possible anti-diarrhoeal characteristics. Termite eating in western lowland gorillas might therefore be a high quality alternative for geophagy." How Insectivorous are Gorillas? Gorilla Journal 33, December 2006, http://www.berggorilla.org/english/gjournal/texte/33insect.html
Chimps also ingest clay:
More on medical geophagy in chimps: montmorillonite clay and the origins of life
http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2008/02/more_on_medical_geophagy_in_ch.php
French research group's studies on the rationale underlying Ugandan chimpanzee behavior of eating clay soils prior to their favorite plant. The researchers found [http://www.springerlink.com/content/c75t402487h68126/?p=01a5f0d6094d485aae42440e42f82d48&pi=0] that the combination of soil and the plant, Trichilia rubescens, led to activation of the plant's antimalarial compounds
primates are definitely not like that parrot species Attenborough described which primarily eat only highly toxic plants and HAVE to eat clay immediately afterwards.
Yes, and I would not dream of equating the level of clay consumption of primates with that of parrots, so we agree on that. I think the much smaller bodies of birds is another likely factor in toxicity level.
Here is more on the subject of geophagy from Wild Health by Cindy Engel, 2003, pp. 64-69...
"High in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, the last few hundred mountain gorillas continue to mine yellow volcanic rock from the slopes of Mount Visoke, as they have done for generations. From the size of the caverns they have carved out under the roots of trees, it is evident that these vegetarian [sic] apes treasure this dirt. After loosening small pieces of rock with their teeth, they take small lumps of their powerful leathery hands and grind them into a fine powder before eating.
Since George Schaller first documented gorillas mining volcanic rock on nearby Mount Mikeno in 1963, several other field workers have observed similar behavior. Diane Fosse reported that gorillas were far more likely to rock in the dry season when their diet changed dramatically to bamboo, Lobelia, and Secio plants--all containing more toxic plant secondary compounds than their usual diet. Along with this change in diet came a synchronous increase in diarrhea (a natural response to rid the body of toxins). This extra loss of fluid, in the dry season, the tensely be a serious health problem for the gorillas. Fossey suggested that the mining and processing of the fine volcanic dust was a response to the seasonal change in diet.29
....
"Evidence that forest elephants are using the clay to self medicate against gastrointestinal upset is circumstantial but fascinating. These elephants feed primarily on these all year long except for the month September, when ripe fruit is so abundant that they changed eating mainly fruits. Leaves (as opposed to ripe fruits) generally contain many secondary compounds designed to deter herbivores from feeding on them. A shift from eating leaves to eating fruits would therefore dramatically reduce consumption of toxic secondary compounds -- a natural experiment to see if toxin consumption equates with clay consumption. The only month in which elephants reduce their visits the clay licks is during the fruit eating month, September!
In Africa, then, mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, and forest elephants appear to be eating clay to deal with toxins (or their effects) in their tropical forest diet. ....
"After studying geophagy in the Amazon Forest of Peru for many years, Charles Munn has concluded that nearly all vertebrates that feed on fruits, seeds, and leaves also eat clay. ...."33
In 1999 the hypothesis that macaws eat clay in order to deactivate plant toxins was tested experimentally by James Gilardi and a team of scientists at Davis, California. - p. 68 - [They found] that clay can indeed prevent the movement of plant alkaloids into the blood."
...meat eaters do occasionally eat dirt.... Tigers occasionally ingest [black micaceous] soil deliberately ... during November and December. ...the primary benefit of clay consumption is in countering dietary toxins. In essence, eating earth allows animals to deal with the effects of unavoidable toxins.
References:
29. G. B. Schaller, The Year of the Gorilla (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); D. Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983)
30. W. C. Mahaney, S. Aufreiter, and R. G. V. Hancock, "Mountain Gorilla Geophagy: A Possible Seasonal Behavior for Dealing with the Effects of Dietary Changes," International Journal of Primatology, 16(3) (1995):475-488.
31. W. C. Mahaney, R. G. V. Hancock, et al., "Geochemistry and Clay Mineralogy of Termite Mound Soils and the Role of Geophagy in Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains, Tanzania," Primates, 37(2) (1996):121-134. For a review of geophagy in primates, see R. Krishnamani and W.C. Mahaney, "Geophagy Among Primates: Adaptive Significance and Ecological Consequences," Animal Behavior, 59 (2000):899-915.
33. Discussed in W. Mayer, "Feat of Clay," Wildlife Conservation (June 1999).
Maybe dental caries is something to expect for any frugivore with teeth, eventually.
Indeed, sites such as this one appear to indicate that dental caries is a standard for natural frugivores:-
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0003996904002031
Precisely what I have been thinking, but I haven't investigated fruit-caused caries beyond humans and other primates and didn't have references to back it up, so I had thought it might be too upsetting to you to mention my speculation on that without supporting sources. I'm surprised to find that you apparently agree with me on this as well. Thanks for trying to provide a link--unfortunately, I don't have membership to access the one you provided.
It was pointed out that the other primates simply used different, perhaps more effective methods to counter the dental caries(re mention of cashew antibacterial agents).
Yes, antibacterial foods can apparently help offset ingestion of fruit, as I reported (did you think I disagreed with what I reported?), but there would be no necessity for their dental benefits if the fruit in the diet did not contribute at all to caries in the first place. Glander points to BOTH fruit and cashew pedicels as being factors in the low caries rate among howlers--not just one or the other. AFAIK, the connection between fruit sugars and caries is not controversial (except among extreme vegans/vegetarians/fruitarians). I know of no credible scientist who claims there is no link. Do you know of one? One only has to read a fruitarian-oriented forum (or the accounts of former fruitarian-oriented people here) to find plenty of examples of fruit-heavy dieters reporting dental health problems. Even SuperInfinity, who remained unrepentently pro-fruitarianesque to the end, reported dental health problems.
I think that all of this (albeit much of it indirectly) lends credence to your hypothesis that humans are not fully adapted to cooking. It is because of these dental and other health issues of wild primates, giant pandas, etc., in addition to my own experience and yours and others here, that I have been increasingly leaning more strongly to your view that humans are much less adapted to cooking (at least high-heat cooking) than the "experts" believe. If chimps can eat lots of fruit for 6 million years and still get cavities from it, then it is no great surprise that humans might develop some health issues from eating cooked foods 250,000 or more years after they started doing so. In other words, humans can survive on a cooked-food diet, just as chimps can survive on mostly fruit, but that doesn't mean that an all-cooked diet is optimal for humans. I don't think I see it as severely deleterious a practice as you do, and we may focus on different evidence, but I think we basically agree on the main point.
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You're missing my point. I was suggesting that dental caries gotten from fruit-sugars had nothing whatsoever to do with general health or adaptation/maladaptation to a fruitarian diet. It might well be an entirely separate characteristic, having nothing to do with either. So chimps may well be perfectly adapted to fruit.
As for geophagia, the link you gave indicated that there were multiple other explanations given for eating clay other than the antinutrient claims (such as getting vital minerals/nutrients from it(eg:- soil bacteria for the gut, anti-malarial activity etc.)
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You're missing my point. I was suggesting that dental caries gotten from fruit-sugars had nothing whatsoever to do with general health or adaptation/maladaptation to a fruitarian diet. It might well be an entirely separate characteristic, having nothing to do with either. So chimps may well be perfectly adapted to fruit.
I was talking mainly about specific health aspects--with dental health being the clearest case--more than general health. You may think that chimps are "perfectly" adapted with caries, but I propose they would be more perfect without them (as with the howlers), and raw vegans looking for a good diet would do well to look elsewhere than the chimp diet unless they also want caries, as I doubt any other primates are fully adapted to a high-fruit diet either. I also propose that these caries suggest that perfect dental adaptation to a high-fruit diet in a species with ancestors whose physiologies were more oriented to eating insects and leaves did not occur even after 6 million years--thus supporting your contention that some dietary adaptations take longer than 250,000 years (and some adaptations may never be "perfectly" complete). For example, if cooked food leads to caries or other dental health defects, we could posit that full adaptation has also not occurred to cooking. The giant panda's multiple health issues after more than 2 million years of eating mostly bamboo may be a preferable example for you, since it is more stark and you don't seem to like the chimp dental example.
As for geophagia, the link you gave indicated that there were multiple other explanations given for eating clay other than the antinutrient claims (such as getting vital minerals/nutrients from it(eg:- soil bacteria for the gut, anti-malarial activity etc.)
Nearly everything has multiple reasons. Because there are multiple reasons it doesn't somehow cancel out one of those multiple reasons. I think an objective review of the evidence supports what I've posited--including the article you provided--which is that the incomplete adaptations of giant pandas and chimps after millions of years call into question the claim that humans are completely or sufficiently adapted to cooking and suggests that a raw diet might be superior.
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One of the biggest scientific frauds of all time was the Marxist Stephen Jay Gould, who, most unfortunately, was until he was eventually debunked, viewed by some as an authority on palaeontology, despite his lack of scientific credentials in that area, IMO. Here's a relevant article:-
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-sailer052202.asp
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The Daily Telegraph wrote a recent article about a moronic UK law which prohibits the introduction of species which do not normally live in the UK. What is ridiculous is that the UK government has designated wild boar as being "non-native". Wild boar of course have indeed been native to the British Isles up to the 13th century when the last wild boar was killed off by humans. So, the recent influx of wild boar into the English countryside(thanks, partly due to the efforts of some courageous animal-rights activists and to the 1987 hurricane) is merely restoring a natural balance that humans destroyed.
At any rate, from my POV, I rather like the notion of being able to buy raw wild boar from farmers' markets as a result of this so-called "incursion" of wild boar.
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Due to some silly custom of my own, I used to eat dates around Christmas,. I did so today, and it was a rather foolish decision. You see, most dates, even organic ones, must have additives in them or something, as whenever I ate dates since going rawpalaeo, my eyes would leak some black fluid so that it would look as though I had make-up around my eyes.
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When I still had symptoms of ischemic heart disease, one date caused a symptom the quickest. Nothing was more poisonous. (Medjool)
I thought it might be the kind of sugar in them.
Are dates paleo? I never saw birds eat them, why not?
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When I still had symptoms of ischemic heart disease, one date caused a symptom the quickest. Nothing was more poisonous. (Medjool)
I thought it might be the kind of sugar in them.
Are dates paleo? I never saw birds eat them, why not?
I'm sure dates were palaeo. I don't think they were artificially created by humans.
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When I still had symptoms of ischemic heart disease, one date caused a symptom the quickest. Nothing was more poisonous. (Medjool)
I thought it might be the kind of sugar in them.
...
I think you're on the right track. Dried fruits have frequently been identified in this forum as high in sugar, and dates are notoriously so--especially the tasty and addictive Medjool dates. Here are some figures to ponder from Nutriondata.com:
Medjool datesL 16g sugars per 24g total weight - 67%
deglet noor dates: 93g sugars per 147g total weight - 63%
raisins, golden seedless: sugars 98g per 165g total weight - 59%
prunes: 66g 174g - 38%
Dried Blueberries, Wild Maine: 2g 28g - 7%
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I have nothing against dates, it's just that all dates sold in the UK seem to have preservatives of some sort added to them(or I wouldn't get that blackish muck coming out of my eyes after eating them). Plus, I believe they're routinely steamed.
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...as whenever I ate dates since going rawpalaeo, my eyes would leak some black fluid so that it would look as though I had make-up around my eyes.
Thats incredible that you have such a strong and bizarre reaction to dates. You seem to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in diet which perhaps is a good thing being that you can narrow down your food choices more accurately. You seem to be one of just a handful of people that have had negative effects after going zero carb, with your experience re having massive troubles with your teeth being the worst. Every other journal I have seen or remember (perhaps there is some survivorship bias going on here) has yielded very positive cumulative long term results
Also, what quantity of dates did you eat?
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Thats incredible that you have such a strong and bizarre reaction to dates. You seem to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in diet which perhaps is a good thing being that you can narrow down your food choices more accurately. You seem to be one of just a handful of people that have had negative effects after going zero carb, with your experience re having massive troubles with your teeth being the worst. Every other journal I have seen or remember (perhaps there is some survivorship bias going on here) has yielded very positive cumulative long term results
Also, what quantity of dates did you eat?
I don't have a strong reaction to dates at all. Like I said, all I get is some blackish muck coming out of my eyes, looking like eye-shadow - no allergic reactions or reaction re blood-sugar or whatever. As for bad experiences with zero-carb, I'm actually one of a great multitude of people who do very badly indeed on zero-carb - I keep on hearing about people trying it(raw or cooked) and being forced to give it up within short order.
Part of the reason why there are more ZC-oriented journals, here, is that this forum attracts people from the cooked-palaeolithic(and ZC) camps - plus, there is more messianic fervour with raw ZC as it bans even more foods than a raw, omnivorous diet does, with raw carbs being labelled unsuitable as well. Raw omnivores would likely be more blase about this sort of thing, and therefore less likely to start a journal.
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Thats good to hear that you weren't otherwise physically affected. I assumed that having blackish muck emanating from your eyes and subsequently avoiding those type of dates again would be enough to say you had a strong reaction from them. I just got off the phone with an optometrist friend of mine who said she knew of no one reporting such colored muck and never learned about such in school. It might be worth finding out more about it.
As for the "great multitude" of people doing bad on zc, I have only heard of you and Yuri who have not had an overall net positive experience. Even the very few on the ZC board who've had consitent issues are doing better than their days as vlc/vegan/whatever they were doing previously. When looking at personal experience I tend to seek out the negatives far more than the positives as I gain much more from looking at where people went wrong and what to look out for in the future. From what I can gather from sneaking a peek at numerous journals is that your experiences have been an outlier with no one else really having anything on the order of your teeth ordeal. Clearly there is more info out there that I missed. Do you mind giving more detail on this great multitude of people who have had to give zc up?
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Thats good to hear that you weren't otherwise physically affected. I assumed that having blackish muck emanating from your eyes and subsequently avoiding those type of dates again would be enough to say you had a strong reaction from them. I just got off the phone with an optometrist friend of mine who said she knew of no one reporting such colored muck and never learned about such in school. It might be worth finding out more about it.
The eyes use tears etc. to get rid of detritus, so it's perfectly normal for the eyes to leak any toxins out. With other foods such as cooked meats, I might have minor diarrhea or some such, which would be a more vehement detox. As it is, there's no negative symptoms as such , no pain/no itchiness or whatever etc. etc., and nothing bad happened in previous times I consumed dates either, so it's of no consequence.
As for the "great multitude" of people doing bad on zc, I have only heard of you and Yuri who have not had an overall net positive experience. Even the very few on the ZC board who've had consitent issues are doing better than their days as vlc/vegan/whatever they were doing previously. When looking at personal experience I tend to seek out the negatives far more than the positives as I gain much more from looking at where people went wrong and what to look out for in the future. From what I can gather from sneaking a peek at numerous journals is that your experiences have been an outlier with no one else really having anything on the order of your teeth ordeal. Clearly there is more info out there that I missed. Do you mind giving more detail on this great multitude of people who have had to give zc up?
You'd have to read every post on this forum and other raw-related forums for posts mentioning in passing that they tried and failed with ZC. Simply put, those who do well on ZC will inevitably tend to boast about it constantly and post details about ZC trials etc. Those who do very badly on ZC diets, will mostly no longer mention ZC any more, since deteriorating on ZC, and stick quietly to raw, omnivorous diets(most such types, invariably experience serious health-problems within weeks, so inevitably for them it's a very short dietary experiment of no real interest).
In my own case, I very seriously doubt if I'd ever have mentioned my horrible health-problems on RZC here or even started this journal, unless I'd been extremely uncomfortable with some of the more overhyped claims by some ZCers elsewhere in the forum(including some truly appalling claims that pasteurised butter or pemmican or cooked, grainfed meats were supposedly "healthier" than raw carbs).
As regards forums etc., you should be careful not to judge by appearances. For example, the ZIOH forum is notoriously Stalinist in its approach to any members who report experiencing health-problems or who have views which differ from the strict orthodoxy of that forum - anyone who complains etc. gets quickly banned. So, reading the posts there would not be truly representative of what people are genuinely experiencing re ZC.
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ZC definitely has its time and place. I had to go pretty much ZC for a while after my fruitarian days. It's not for everyone, though, long-term.
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And here's why it's not for everyone:
"I must warn all of you that it is very unlikely that very many will be able to eat as I do over the long term, or in fact, to follow any diet for long which is much different from the one you were trained to as a baby/child. This is because diet is learned much the same way language, dress and behaviour is, and is buried deep and inaccessible, a part of your acculturation/socialisation. The very thing which makes us human is that deep and almost instinctive complex of behaviour."
From:http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/Bear_s_Words_Of_Wisdom_about22.html
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Unfortunately, while zero-carb may be slightly more difficult to follow than a raw, omnivorous diet, the difference is so small as to mean the above claim is too negligible a factor to be significant(after all, it's tough enough for raw omnivores to eat raw meat, given social pressures etc.). In other words, people fail on raw zero-carb primarily due to health-issues, not for any other reason.
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Due to some silly custom of my own, I used to eat dates around Christmas,. I did so today, and it was a rather foolish decision. You see, most dates, even organic ones, must have additives in them or something, as whenever I ate dates since going rawpalaeo, my eyes would leak some black fluid so that it would look as though I had make-up around my eyes.
Black fluid - sounds like your dates got metabolized so that some landed up in your tear glands...what goes in must come out / get taken care of / used!
In healthy mammalian eyes, the cornea is continually kept wet and nourished by basal tears. They lubricate the eye, and help to keep it clear of dust. Tear fluid contains water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium. Some of the substances in lacrimal fluid (such as lysozyme) fight against bacterial infection as a part of the immune system. Lysozyme does this by dissolving the outer coating of certain bacteria. It is a typical body fluid with a salt content similar to blood plasma. Usually, in a 24-hour period, 0.75 to 1.1 grams (0.03-0.04 ounce avoirdupois) of tears are secreted; this rate slows with age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears
Nicola
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And here's why it's not for everyone:
"I must warn all of you that it is very unlikely that very many will be able to eat as I do over the long term, or in fact, to follow any diet for long which is much different from the one you were trained to as a baby/child. This is because diet is learned much the same way language, dress and behaviour is, and is buried deep and inaccessible, a part of your acculturation/socialisation. The very thing which makes us human is that deep and almost instinctive complex of behaviour."
From:http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/Bear_s_Words_Of_Wisdom_about22.html
Given the almost inhuman strength of my will, that's rather funny. I have no trouble eating anything, if I decide to, and only that thing, for as long as I choose. :)
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The eyes use tears etc. to get rid of detritus, so it's perfectly normal for the eyes to leak any toxins out. ...
Actually, I had never heard of this symptom until you mentioned it, Tyler, and couldn't find anything on the Net about it. Is there a name for it? Do you know what the "toxins" are? That doesn't mean it doesn't exist--just that it suggests that it's not very common.
Despite your frequently very negative posts about ZC, Tyler. According to your statement...
"My own view is that anywhere between 5-15% raw carbs, by calorie, is required as an optimum (for me) but that the 35% carbs that Cordain et al promote is rather too high."
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/fats-and-cuts-of-meat/msg12169/#msg12169
...your own level of carbs "required as an optimum" seems rather low. Just to make sure I understand you--is this what you consider your miminal requirements or optimal values? In other words, is 10% carbs what you consider to be about your "optimal" level of carb intake?
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Actually, I had never heard of this symptom until you mentioned it, Tyler, and couldn't find anything on the Net about it. Is there a name for it? Do you know what the "toxins" are? That doesn't mean it doesn't exist--just that it suggests that it's not very common.
The effect was very minor and only occurred after eating dates and then only for 24 hours afterwards. If it had been even vaguely significant, I should have felt some pain or some other symptom. As it is, it's well-known that fluids from the eyes get rid of toxins(some research has been done on tears being useful for getting rid of toxins for example(though I wasn't crying at the time!LOL!). And, it's really no different from similiar negligible symptoms I've gotten after eating cooked animal foods(after eating the latter, my eyes routinely get heavy amounts of dust at the corners, merely a detox of some trace toxins. And, unlike with cooked animal foods, I get no other symptoms from consumption of dates.
Despite your frequently very negative posts about ZC, Tyler. According to your statement...
"My own view is that anywhere between 5-15% raw carbs, by calorie, is required as an optimum (for me) but that the 35% carbs that Cordain et al promote is rather too high."
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/fats-and-cuts-of-meat/msg12169/#msg12169
...your own level of carbs "required as an optimum" seems rather low. Just to make sure I understand you--is this what you consider your miminal requirements or optimal values? In other words, is 10% carbs what you consider to be about your "optimal" level of carb intake?
Having only a few carbs doesn't mean that one thinks they are unhealthy. Anyway, I, as I've mentioned before, can veer frequently between eating only raw carbs(raw fruit) for a week or two to just eating raw animal food and nothing else for 2 weeks(though I dare not overdo the latter, given past nasty experiences). I suppose it was rather grossly inaccurate of me to give percentages, however vague, for my diet, as so often, it's down to numerous factors such as whether my meat-supply is reliable at any time, to other factors such as the fact that I feel far too hot if I don't eat most of my intake as raw carbs in the hot summer, whereas I'll eat a higher percentage of raw meat in winter and fewer carbs). Plus, throughout my diet I've veered between high-carb, low-carb, very-low carb and even the more unusual zero-carb trial, and I'll eat more carbs during my various bursts of physical activity. In short, carbs don't bother me as such. I'm more concerned with eating lots of raw meat/fat to ward off possible nutritional deficiencies obtained on raw vegan/fruitarian diets, while at the same time avoiding ZC and near-ZC VLC because of the health-issues I had with ZC etc.
As for optimum ranges, I have no idea. I was under the (possibly erroneous) impression that the 35% of carbs in the diet that Cordain et al recommend involved a very high intake of plants, so that in previous times, I aimed at lower-recommended figures.I suppose, now, I think a minimum of 5% carbs is best and a maximum of 25-35% carbs is ideal, these days.
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The effect was very minor and only occurred after eating dates and then only for 24 hours afterwards. If it had been even vaguely significant, I should have felt some pain or some other symptom. As it is, it's well-known that fluids from the eyes get rid of toxins(some research has been done on tears being useful for getting rid of toxins for example(though I wasn't crying at the time!LOL!). And, it's really no different from similiar negligible symptoms I've gotten after eating cooked animal foods(after eating the latter, my eyes routinely get heavy amounts of dust at the corners, merely a detox of some trace toxins. And, unlike with cooked animal foods, I get no other symptoms from consumption of dates.
Again, I'm not doubting you, I've just never heard of black tears and find it interesting. Can you direct me somewhere for more info? I did use to get more "sand" in my eyes, and sometimes mucus, in the mornings when eating a higher-carb, partly cooked diet, though it was never black. My ophthalmologist told me that my eyes were inflamed/irritated or infected and gave me drops at the time. It's gone now and I rarely get any "sand" at all (unless I stay up too late and my eyes get tired and watery). Any idea what's in the black tears that makes them black? Sometimes knowledge about one symptom leads to other insights that may prove useful for the people who ask me for health info.
Anyway, I, as I've mentioned before, can veer frequently between eating only raw carbs(raw fruit) for a week or two to ...
Let me try to simplify things for the purposes of discussion. Is 10% a valid ROUGH estimate of what you consider your optimal carb intake? If not, please do propose whatever figure you feel is, and I will take it to be understood that this figure includes all the qualifiers you mentioned about variations in weekly intake, etc.
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I only know vaguely of sites focusing on tears and similiar fluids for getting rid of toxins from the eyes. You'd have to search. I'd guess that there must be some preservative in the dates which is causing the blackish colour. At any rate, I don't get the bloodshot eyes etc. with dates that that I get with cooked animal foods.
As for exact percentage, I can't give a specific answer since my diet( like many others' it varies constantly). All I can state is that I don't get any noticeable health-issues between 5-35% of carbs in my diet. My personal preferences obviously will change carb-percentages depending on whether I'm doing more exercise or am in winter/summer etc. I suppose the 5-15% figure is too vague and assumes certain things such as low physical activity with respect to the 5% figure etc.
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I only know vaguely of sites focusing on tears and similiar fluids for getting rid of toxins from the eyes. You'd have to search. I'd guess that there must be some preservative in the dates which is causing the blackish colour.
I did search but didn't come up with anything. Any ideas what the preservative might be? Please forgive my ignorance.
As for exact percentage, I can't give a specific answer since my diet....
I don't want an exact percentage. As I mentioned elsewhere, I rarely deal in "exact," absolute, perfect, etc., as I find that such things rarely exist in the real world. I'm more interested in your ROUGH estimate of your optimal AVERAGE level of carb intake. The range is useful too, but I'd like a single figure to get a sense of how it compares to others. Granted, it's an oversimplification, but simplifications do tend to facilitate comparison and discussion as long as they are not taken as absolutes. You've given two very different ranges, so do take your time to consider what range you feel is best representative of your general overall experience--let's say over a period of a year or more. There are no "right" answers, I'm just looking for your best estimates. I think it might help give some perspective.
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I did search but didn't come up with anything. Any ideas what the preservative might be? Please forgive my ignorance.
I know nothing about that, except what's online:-
http://www.pubhort.org/datepalm/datepalm1/datepalm1_34.pdf
I suspect even the organic dates I've bought have some preservative and are nearly always steamed.
I don't want an exact percentage. As I mentioned elsewhere, I rarely deal in "exact," absolute, perfect, etc., as I find that such things rarely exist in the real world. I'm more interested in your ROUGH estimate of your optimal AVERAGE level of carb intake. The range is useful too, but I'd like a single figure to get a sense of how it compares to others. Granted, it's an oversimplification, but simplifications do tend to facilitate comparison and discussion as long as they are not taken as absolutes. You've given two very different ranges, so do take your time to consider what range you feel is best representative of your general overall experience--let's say over a period of a year or more. There are no "right" answers, I'm just looking for your best estimates. I think it might help give some perspective.
Look, on any 1 year, my overall average intake of carbs could be 5%, 10% or even 25%, depending on a multitude of different factors, though I was VLC for several years. However, if I ate as much as 50% raw carbs for a whole year, I wouldn't be affected(except a possible too quick a rise in blood-sugar-levels, here and there?) as I'm long past the stage where I used to eat 100% raw plant foods and nothing else, so have no worries re potential nutritional deficiencies that are common re 100% raw vegan/fruitarian diets. Simply put, I don't worry re carb-ratios as carbs aren't the issue , my primary reasons these days for not overindulging in carbs is really to do with food-prices(my appetite goes through the roof if I eat truly vast amounts of carbs)- I'm far more worried when I eat any cooked animal foods, especially those very highly processed.
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"My own view is that anywhere between 5-15% raw carbs, by calorie, is required as an optimum (for me)"
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/fats-and-cuts-of-meat/msg12169/#msg12169
"I think a minimum of 5% carbs is best and a maximum of 25-35% carbs is ideal, these days."
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/a-day-in-the-life-of-tylerdurden/msg23103/#msg23103
"I can't give a specific answer since my diet( like many others' it varies constantly). All I can state is that I don't get any noticeable health-issues between 5-35% of carbs in my diet. My personal preferences obviously will change carb-percentages depending on whether I'm doing more exercise or am in winter/summer etc. I suppose the 5-15% figure is too vague and assumes certain things such as low physical activity with respect to the 5% figure etc."
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/a-day-in-the-life-of-tylerdurden/msg23112/#msg23112
"1 year, my overall average intake of carbs could be 5%, 10% or even 25%, depending on a multitude of different factors, though I was VLC for several years. However, if I ate as much as 50% raw carbs for a whole year, I wouldn't be affected(except a possible too quick a rise in blood-sugar-levels, here and there?) as I'm long past the stage where I used to eat 100% raw plant foods and nothing else, so have no worries re potential nutritional deficiencies that are common re 100% raw vegan/fruitarian diets. Simply put, I don't worry re carb-ratios as carbs aren't the issue , my primary reasons these days for not overindulging in carbs is really to do with food-prices(my appetite goes through the roof if I eat truly vast amounts of carbs)- I'm far more worried when I eat any cooked animal foods, especially those very highly processed."
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/a-day-in-the-life-of-tylerdurden/msg23165/#msg23165
OK, thanks for trying. I was interested in finding out more about the diet that you find works for you. You seem very clear on some things--that you're diet must be 100% raw or you quickly develop horrendous symptoms, that you do need some raw animal flesh (meat/fat/organs) and do very poorly on raw dairy products. Yes? I don't see a clear answer in this wide range of responses above re: carbs and they seem to get vaguer instead of more focused with each response, so perhaps you are still searching for what works for you as far as the carb aspect goes? Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for precise magical numbers or anything, and don't believe in them myself (which is part of the reason I say I'm doing a raw carnivore or RAF diet instead of ZC, which some take to imply an absolute zero level of carb intake)--I'm just trying to get some sense of where you're currently at.
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No, I'm quite satisfied with my current diet. There's no way I can really improve it, anyway, as I eat raw wild game, which is the ultimate in nutrition. I might like to dabble in a few luxury foods or raw supplements occasionally such as raw royal jelly or the krill-oil(because I've seen changes in iris-colour from that), but that's about it. The only changes I envision are in things like trying to emulate palaeo levels of exercise and the like. As for raw carbs, I'm quite happy with the range I have now. Like I said, I change my carb-intake depending on things like physical activity, or heat/cold , so I'm simply flexible re that part of my diet.
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For some strange reason, I've been getting more and more raw-diet-related questions over the years by people who just want to lose some weight. I get a bit non-plussed at this unusual type of questioning as most people I've come across up till now have only tried RVAF diets because they were very ill as a result of following other types of diet, and being so ill from past diets is often a good incentive to stick to this type of diet in the long-term. Still, it's a good sign, I suppose, of increasing public acceptance of raw diets if people are willing to try a RVAF diet primarily in order to lose weight.
On the other hand, they may simply not have read my profile properly. For example, I've had a couple of cases in the past where people asked me raw vegan diet-related questions who obviously had wrongly assumed that all rawists must be raw vegans.
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No, I'm quite satisfied with my current diet.
Yes, I know you're satisfied with it and I'm not recommending any changes. I'm just curious about what it is. It might help me understand where you're coming from if I get a clearer picture of your approach. I get a very clear picture about what you aren't doing and don't like, but somewhat less clear about what you ARE doing, especially as carbs go. I do know certain things, like that you try to go 100% raw and eat oysters, of course. I think the last rough estimate you mentioned was a range of around 5% to 35% carbs. Would you say that's a fair idea of about what you're doing these days (with variation within that, of course)?
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I suppose. The 35% figure is rarer than the 5% figure, overall.
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You are talking about percentage of carbs' calories?
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You are talking about percentage of carbs' calories?
I guess so. I did try weighing every piece of food I ate to find out the exact amounts I ate but it got so boring that I gave up.
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Aajonus said that 5% of carbs' calories is the the best amount. If someone eats 2000 calories than that's 100 carbs' calories, which is equal to 25 grams. That's very low-carb diet, IMHO.
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Aajonus said that 5% of carbs' calories is the the best amount. If someone eats 2000 calories than that's 100 carbs' calories, which is equal to 25 grams. That's very low-carb diet, IMHO.
Aajonus also recommends a diet consisting of 25% veggie-juice so that's a lot of carbs, plus he recommends lots of raw honey(less so than the vast amounts in the past but still) and then there's the nuts.
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Incidentally, it seems other people have different definitions of what VLC means. Some seem to claim 5-10%, I always assumed it meant at most 5%, and usually much lower. For example, those periods when I was doing VLC, I'd eat only 250g of raw berries every fortnight and that would be it(unless one counts the carbs in raw liver and other animal foods, I guess).
As regards my own ZC disasters, it has been mentioned that ZC chronically stresses the adrenals for some months, so that my adrenals, while completely healed re specific adrenal-related symptoms, might still have been chronically weak after a lifetime of abuse, and therefore not able to deal with those ZC experiments. That said, it doesn't explain non-adrenal-related symptoms such as the very swift deterioriation of my teeth which had become very strong in my raw, omnivorous days(after cutting out the raw dairy of course).
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Incidentally, it seems other people have different definitions of what VLC means. Some seem to claim 5-10%, I always assumed it meant at most 5%, and usually much lower. ...
That's one reason why I asked what your levels are, because based on your past comments I was surprised at how low carb the menu samples you mentioned were and how low the carb levels you mentioned off and on were. At 35% or lower carbs, your diet would be considered LC to VLC by most people. The Zone Diet is considered "low carb" at around 40% carbs, because it's lower than the SAD intake of 49 or 50%. 5% is near Inuit level intake--considered extremely low by most.
For further perspective, some "experts" and gurus consider the SAD carb intake of around 50% to be too low. For example, Dean Ornish, "the celebrated cardiologist," recommended 70-75% in one of his books (Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease, p. 257, http://www.mendosa.com/heart.htm) and Douglas Graham of the 80-10-10 diet recommends 80% carbs.
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I hate to be wishy-washy, but we probably each have different abilities to tolerate carbs. I was heavily influenced by the publication of the American version of Lutz's German book, Leben Ohne Brot, as Life Without Bread. Lutz there proposes that 72 grams of carb/day as the upper limit of a healthy diet. I found that number to be about right. Lutz argues for that number based on the glucose needs of the brain. I think that that argument is not sound. There are many people who do well on zero carbs, and their brains are doing well too ;D
When I have made my forays into paleo eating, I have reduced my carbs to 25-36 grams or less per day.
So, for me low-carb is <72 grams/day. VLC is <36 grams. I will acknowledge that some people will call a diet low carb with much, much higher limits.
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Lutz there proposes that 72 grams of carb/day as the upper limit of a healthy diet.
In "Harper's Biochemistry" you can read that we need 50-100 of glucose, so Lutz's 72 grams is almost inbetween.
If you train a lot that you need higher amounts of carbs. That's simple fact.
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Grams don't seem as good of a comparison as percentages, since people's body weights and total food intake are different.
I've been surprised at how my health improved every time I reduced carbs further, beginning at around 50% and all the way down to zero. I didn't expect this. I thought I would hit a level at which I would have no more improvement beyond a certain level, maybe 10-25% calories as carbs. And the improvements from cutting carbs didn't just start after being ZC as a result of adaptation to fat, they began quickly at my highest carb intake levels and continued all the way down. I don't claim this is good for everyone, it's just how it has worked out for me so far, much to my surprise. I used to say things like "Everyone agrees that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is healthy."
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Minor notes:- usually when I eat cooked animal foods of any kind, I start coughing up very unpleasant oily stuff which I have to expel. I also get heavy amounts of yellow dust in the eyes the morning after and tend to feel more sleepy. Of course, I could avoid these issues if I always had "high-meat" prepared and ready but I can't always do "high-meat" all the time for various reasons(people object to the smell which so easily gets spread around, and my own sense of smell has never been the greatest).
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God, I'm so annoyed. Due to the snow and other issues here in the UK, I'm unable to get hold of raw organic/grassfed muscle-meats until next Sunday. I suppose raw fish will have to do, though the quality isn't as good in my immediate area as I usually have gotten in the past. It always seems that the worst times of the year re food-availability are around Christmas/New Year and Easter as farmers take a vacation then.
Well, I still have raw grassfed suet available but, for me, it really is the rawpaleodieter's equivalent of a McDonald's burger. Well,I'll be getting marrow in 7 days, so no matter.
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Due to the snow and other issues here in the UK, I'm unable to get hold of raw organic/grassfed muscle-meats until next Sunday.
Paleoman would have had the same problem, and used foresight to solve it with pemmican.
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Paleoman would have had the same problem, and used foresight to solve it with pemmican.
Sure, but if I consumed pemmican, then I would feel rather ill, just as with any other cooked animal fat. Far better for me to eat raw fish or just fast until I can get hold of decent raw flesh.
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Hmm, in the feedback from readers in my Q&A section, there was an objection by the company us wellness meats. I had written an answer to a pemmican-related question, explaining the various reasons why coconut oil/lard/berries/salt weren't ideal for making pemmican(lard often being grainfed(sometimes hydrogenated even!), and mentioned reports re use of berries shortening pemmican shelf-life), and mentioned how unhealthy pemmican was in general etc.. They mentioned that their meat was grassfed(though I've heard 1 or 2 claims by a couple of other US-based RPDers that that their meat might not be 100% grassfed - haven't tried it myself being 1000s of miles away, of course); and they also mentioned that they used salt and berries for taste reasons(well, berries are undoubtedly necessary given the the sawdust-like reputation pemmican has re taste. Oh, and they mentioned their tallow was only made at low heat.
I was a bit surprised at this comment. Perhaps rawpalaeos form a bigger customer-base at the big US agricombines like us wellness meats/slanker's than I'd thought. Personally, I would far rather US-based RVAFers bought their meats from more small-time farmers for reasons of quality/price/variety etc., but not everyone has farms/farmers' markets in their immediate neighbourhood, and smaller farms can have problems re availability of specific organs etc.
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Minor notes:- usually when I eat cooked animal foods of any kind, I start coughing up very unpleasant oily stuff which I have to expel. I also get heavy amounts of yellow dust in the eyes the morning after and tend to feel more sleepy. Of course, I could avoid these issues if I always had "high-meat" prepared and ready but I can't always do "high-meat" all the time for various reasons(people object to the smell which so easily gets spread around, and my own sense of smell has never been the greatest).
Do you mean that "high meat" would minimize the nasty effects you experience from cooked meat ?
What is your experience "high meat against cooked meat" ?
How do you explain this phenomena (enzymes, bacteria, boost effect, etc.) ?
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Do you mean that "high meat" would minimize the nasty effects you experience from cooked meat ?
What is your experience "high meat against cooked meat" ?
How do you explain this phenomena (enzymes, bacteria, boost effect, etc.) ?
Well, I started the "high-meat" consumption because another rawpalaeodieter from the rawpaleodiet yahoo group swore by it, claiming that the enzymes in the "high-meat" compensated for the lack of enzymes in cooked foods, so that digestion of cooked foods at around the same time would be harmless. It worked so well, I've used that method often since that discovery. Also, cooked foods seem to give a sort of hangover, depressive effect, IMO, re bloating etc. and the bacteria in "high-meat" appear to negate this effect by boosting mod, apparently by boosting serotonin levels by stimulating the immune system:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1547346/Getting-dirty-could-prevent-depression.html
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Well, I'm going to try pemmican in a couple of months or so. More just to confirm others' negative experiences re pemmican. Obviously, there's no way I'm going to waste time preparing my own pemmican as one of the benefits of being raw is not spending time preparing/cooking food,
so I'm going to have to buy it from some UK source. And I can't do a pemmican-only diet as zero-carb, raw or otherwise, is extremely harmful to my health. So, I'll just eat pemmican and some berries for a week or more. If I start getting heart-palpitations etc.
(a common reaction on my part to cooked tallow I won't be surprised).
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i think the reason white people or more civilized folk had to eat berries with pemmican was because they were enzyme/bacteria deficient and because the berries have natural yeasts and bacteria on their skin that helps to digest these foods (plums are a good example, even farmed organic ones still have a whiteish coat of yeast, you see this on nonsterile cabbage as well)
wild berries, choke cherries, rose hips and apples that have spent a winter on a bush or tree or on the ground have bacterias that are even more abundant and the fruit must better tasting...early spring, before the final thaw is the best time to gather (not harvest) these....i think natives probably made some crazy hooch for spring solstice with this fruit and bacteria
so possibly when you add berries they are not some highly cultivated sterilized farmed bullshit, or ferment them yourself a bit
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Well, I'm going to try pemmican in a couple of months or so. More just to confirm others' negative experiences re pemmican. Obviously, there's no way I'm going to waste time preparing my own pemmican as one of the benefits of being raw is not spending time preparing/cooking food,
so I'm going to have to buy it from some UK source. And I can't do a pemmican-only diet as zero-carb, raw or otherwise, is extremely harmful to my health. So, I'll just eat pemmican and some berries for a week or more. If I start getting heart-palpitations etc.
(a common reaction on my part to cooked tallow I won't be surprised).
I wish you good luck with that experiment, but:
The failed ww2 Canadian army experiment with pemmican resulted in such lethargy that it was stopped in only two weeks. Symptoms like that are expected. Such a great change in the way a human body works seems to require heroic persistence for some time.
There is good evidence that heart palpitations are caused mostly by mineral deficiency(www.afibbers.org), and for me the palpitations were cured IMO by the bio-available minerals in raw grass-finshed beef.
It is a mystery as to why anyone could get palpitations with adequate minerals, the only guess I can make is that they ate something that contained a nutrient blocker. Unless they confused palpitations, which is a strong arrhythmia, with tachycardia which is a strong rapid heartbeat. I still notice a faster heartbeat sometimes, and it's always been harmless.
I would not trust anyone to make my pemmican ( except maybe someone who feeds the same stuff to his children);
it's like Rubik's cube, in that while there are a lot of ways to make it right, there are even more ways to make it wrong.
Jessica has a good point, and it might be why wild unwashed blueberries were OK, but I tried mature rose hips picked from the bush and they gave me diarrhea.
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Except that you frequently mention only having access to raw grainfed meat for your pemmican and other meats.
Well, I could try for 3 weeks, but even with decent raw berries, 3 weeks is about the point where I start deteriorating rapidly, healthwise, from raw zero-carb.
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Except that you frequently mention only having access to raw grainfed meat for your pemmican and other meats.
If you check in the archives you'll find that it is the fat that I complain about. The meat is right.
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can't imagine
td that you're going to find quality pemican in the uk, or for that matter anywhere short of buying it from William or Delfuego.
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William, maybe you can make the pemmican for TD with grass-fed meat and fat so we know its of good quality.
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William, maybe you can make the pemmican for TD with grass-fed meat and fat so we know its of good quality.
Only if he can't find the real stuff - the fat I use is not right.
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Well, I'm going to try pemmican in a couple of months or so. More just to confirm others' negative experiences re pemmican. ...
Why bother? It sounds like you've made your mind up a priori, so what would be the point?
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Why bother? It sounds like you've made your mind up a priori, so what would be the point?
Personal anecdotal conviction when arguing against it.
I agree with you though Phil; what's the point if Tyler's decided on the subject. That's setting yourself up to definitely fail.
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My views re pemmican are based on the unpleasant ill-health I got as a result of eating cooked animal foods/fats and the fact that so many people report doing badly on pemmican, one way or another, plus there's the distinct lack of logic in the claim that pemmican isn't significantly changed from its raw state.
Also, I'm always curious re trying other things and have on occasion tried some non-RPD things that I'd never gone in for in pre-RPD days, purely so that I could say that I'd tried those things once in my life, even if I didn't continue with eating them. And believing some new food or diet will succeed or fail doesn't work for me anyway as I've variously wanted strongly to succeed or fail on various foods/diets in my pre-rawpalaeo past without it making one bit of difference to the eventual result - the placebo theory(or rather its reverse) doesn't apply to me in this case.
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Perhaps I should explain myself a bit more re the above post. When I consumed raw dairy before going properly rawpalaeo, I was absolutely addicted to the taste and feelings associated with it(I'd get a drugged-like feeling of euphoria for the first half hour after consuming it etc.). Yet no matter how much I desired it above all other foods, I was eventually forced to give it up or end up in the morgue. Similiarly, in pre-RPD days, I was highly sceptical of vegetarianism and from the start fully expected/wanted that experiment to fail so that I would try something else like cooked-palaeo, yet I stayed with vegetarianism and related diets such as raw veganism/fruitarianism for years simply because it was far healthier for me, symptom-wise than cooked-palaeolithic diets(experiments with cooked-palaeo would last only a few weeks before I had to give up).
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Well I'm curious to see your observations on pemmican when you do try it.
I've had bad experiences in the past with it but still plan on giving both Lex's mix and a "low and slow" rendered fat batch a shot to see if I can isolate why I had issues or if it's a problem across the board.
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Why bother? It sounds like you've made your mind up a priori, so what would be the point?
don't say that! there's nothing unnatural about applying past experience(s) to a current situation.. is there?!
i have plenty of times thought a food would hurt me or help me and found the complete opposite to be true. Coincidentally, pemmican is one of them! If he weren't open-minded about the idea, he wouldn't have proposed it in the first place. I'm curious to your experience Tyler.
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I'm curious to your experience Tyler.
Me too.
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If he does this, TD's experience results cannot be comparable to mine because my objective was to test raw zero carb, not to test pemmican which was incidental.
Pemmican was just a do-able way to experiment.
TD has no intention of trying ZC, which is a pity, as I believe that it is the secret of the health of paleolithic man, and raw ZC is the true paleolithic diet. I'm assuming that he has not done this because he can't get enough of the right fat, or is reacting badly to something in what he has tried.
For me, that seems to be the connective tissure/solid bits discarded from rendered, or something in those solids.
IMO we still don't know enough about fat and the way our bodies digest and use it.
We do read that carb consumption/blood glucose interferes with our bodies use of fat, so it looks to me like TD's proposed experiment is flawed.
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Utter nonsense of course. I've already done several raw zero carb experiments which all failed as they did a huge amount of harm to my health so that I always had to give them up. Simply put, many people do badly on zero-carb. Including more pemmican in the trial isn't necessary, either ,as previous experiments with cooked animal fats had a very quick negative reaction on me, so it'll be quickly clear as to whether the pemmican is harmful or not.
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don't say that! there's nothing unnatural about applying past experience(s) to a current situation.. is there?!
i have plenty of times thought a food would hurt me or help me and found the complete opposite to be true. Coincidentally, pemmican is one of them! If he weren't open-minded about the idea, he wouldn't have proposed it in the first place. I'm curious to your experience Tyler.
Let's put it this way. I guarantee that Tyler will find that pemmican is not a good food for him. The chances of him finding it to be healthful are between zero and zero. Tyler has already decided a priori that pemmican will not work. His only reason for doing it, obviously, is to provide further evidence to support his assumption. Of course, none of this will persuade William or anyone else, so it's all futile.
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Let's put it this way. I guarantee that Tyler will find that pemmican is not a good food for him. The chances of him finding it to be healthful are between zero and zero. Tyler has already decided a priori that pemmican will not work. His only reason for doing it, obviously, is to provide further evidence to support his assumption. Of course, none of this will persuade William or anyone else, so it's all futile.
I trust his experimental integrity. I don't require you to. However, I've never found him one to conceal dietary truth.
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Let's put it this way. I guarantee that Tyler will find that pemmican is not a good food for him. The chances of him finding it to be healthful are between zero and zero. Tyler has already decided a priori that pemmican will not work. His only reason for doing it, obviously, is to provide further evidence to support his assumption. Of course, none of this will persuade William or anyone else, so it's all futile.
You're missing the point. Obviously there is no point in trying to convince William or other pemmican-eater, they would simply make excuses such as "it was the wrong kind of pemmican etc.". I'm purely doing this for myself to see what effects it has on me, if any, and if any symptoms are the same or better or worse than other types of cooked animal foods. As for my deciding in advance that's just ridiculous.
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It's not only that there is no standardized pemmican, so results of such a test are sure to be anecdotal, but it is also that we all carry a differing burden of polluting chemicals, making results even less meaningful for anyone other than the experimenter.
Being as science must be repeatable by anyone competent, this is not science.
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You're missing the point. Obviously there is no point in trying to convince William or other pemmican-eater, they would simply make excuses such as "it was the wrong kind of pemmican etc.". I'm purely doing this for myself to see what effects it has on me, if any, and if any symptoms are the same or better or worse than other types of cooked animal foods. As for my deciding in advance that's just ridiculous.
Very well, I'll take your word for it, but I'm still skeptical that this experiment will produce any substantial new insights.
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Very well, I'll take your word for it, but I'm still skeptical that this experiment will produce any substantial new insights.
haha your skepticism is exactly what people are faulting tylerdurden for....!?!
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This might be of interest to those eating raw grainfed meats:-
"“Another, largely unrecognized, source of dietary AGEs is animal products from animals fed a high-AGE and/or an AGE-inducing diet. This probably includes most commercial poultry, grain-fed beef, and other animals that have high levels of AGEs and/or AGE inducers in their diet. Any ‘fattened’ animal has probably been fed such a diet since that is how rapid weight gain can be produced.”
and this confirms what I've been saying before, that saturated fats are not the issue, but that the glycotoxins formed within cooked saturated fats are the problem:-
"It’s easily missed in the paper, but fats are really big-time AGE producers when cooked at high temperatures,” Joe tells me. “I’ll be posting some data soon. Vegetable fats contain very little saturated fats and they are usually cooked less severely. Since we Americans usually prefer roasted and broiled meats – and much of the fat is on the outside – the meat-based saturated fat gets really high in AGE content when browned. That may be the reason saturated fats are linked to health issues….It’s the AGEs generated from cooking, not the saturated fats themselves. "
taken from:-
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/1687/advanced-diabetes/
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This might be of interest to those eating raw grainfed meats:-
"“Another, largely unrecognized, source of dietary AGEs is animal products from animals fed a high-AGE and/or an AGE-inducing diet. This probably includes most commercial poultry, grain-fed beef, and other animals that have high levels of AGEs and/or AGE inducers in their diet. Any ‘fattened’ animal has probably been fed such a diet since that is how rapid weight gain can be produced.”
and this confirms what I've been saying before, that saturated fats are not the issue, but that the glycotoxins formed within cooked saturated fats are the problem:-
"It’s easily missed in the paper, but fats are really big-time AGE producers when cooked at high temperatures,” Joe tells me. “I’ll be posting some data soon. Vegetable fats contain very little saturated fats and they are usually cooked less severely. Since we Americans usually prefer roasted and broiled meats – and much of the fat is on the outside – the meat-based saturated fat gets really high in AGE content when browned. That may be the reason saturated fats are linked to health issues….It’s the AGEs generated from cooking, not the saturated fats themselves. "
taken from:-
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/1687/advanced-diabetes/
It is clear that animal fattened with high AGEs food cannot eliminate all of these ingested toxins and inevitably store a part of them somewhere in their flesh/organs.
However, the amount of AGEs in raw grainfed meat is probably small compared to the amount found in cooked meat. Is there any data on AGEs content in raw meat ?
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Very little, I'm afraid. All I have is some confirmed data re high levels of AGEs found in raw, commercially-fed(ie 100% grainfed) chicken.The figures I did see, however, were extremely high(something like 1000+ units) so comparable, IMO, to boiled grassfed chicken,.
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But it's extremely difficult to find 100% grass-fed animal in this kind of winter, that is now in Europe. Even wild animals are given some amount of grain, because otherwise some of them will definitely die of famine and the cold.
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But it's extremely difficult to find 100% grass-fed animal in this kind of winter, that is now in Europe. Even wild animals are given some amount of grain, because otherwise some of them will definitely die of famine and the cold.
No, wild animals, by definition, are not given grain unless they're farmed, in which case they're not wild. Wild animals have other methods for getting plant-foods in winter, such as digging into the soil under the ice etc. to get at tubers/grass. Even grassfed, domesticated animals don't have to be fed grains in winter, they can be fed on hay instead.
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All I have is some confirmed data re high levels of AGEs found in raw, commercially-fed(ie 100% grainfed) chicken.The figures I did see, however, were extremely high(something like 1000+ units) so comparable, IMO, to boiled grassfed chicken,.
I don't know enough about AGEs. Boiled grassfed chicken does smell different to me than raw commercial chicken, but both smell grossly inedible to me, while raw pastured chicken smells, tastes and feels nutritious to me.
Cooked commercial chicken my body hasn't been able to tolerate in over thirty years. I was told over twenty years ago by naturopaths to eat chicken, that my stretchmarks, tendon problems etc indicated I needed chicken collagen. Cooked chicken only would make me sick though. I knew grassfed was better, but not good enough for my body, may be the AGEs. I am so glad to have found raw meat is edible.
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No, wild animals, by definition, are not given grain unless they're farmed, in which case they're not wild. Wild animals have other methods for getting plant-foods in winter, such as digging into the soil under the ice etc. to get at tubers/grass. Even grassfed, domesticated animals don't have to be fed grains in winter, they can be fed on hay instead.
All high quality farms use hay & silage in the winter ... which is odd as all farms even the cheaper ones used to do this .... how expensive is hay anyway lol
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All high quality farms use hay & silage in the winter ... which is odd as all farms even the cheaper ones used to do this .... how expensive is hay anyway lol
Yes, I know. But I'm still suspicious that they give some amount of grains, as they're much easier to feed the animals.
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Yes, I know. But I'm still suspicious that they give some amount of grains, as they're much easier to feed the animals.
High quality meats, you can taste the silage, it soaks the flavour through the meat
As for hay the smells so strong you can taste & smell it through the meat
You can easily tell if they add grains, as the flavour gets into the meat
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High quality meats, you can taste the silage, it soaks the flavour through the meat
Yeah, I can feel that smell through the lamb organ-meats, that I buy.
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For some reason, people just love coming up to me in the street and asking me for directions etc. What I find appalling is the sheer number of obviously addicted people who come up and ask me for a light or a cigarette. I had no idea there were so many smokers still out there.
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My new avatar is a representation of what Cro-Magnon Man would look like. I've seen that picture a lot of times when researching palaeo theories, so I thought it would be a useful avatar.
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My new avatar is a representation of what Cro-Magnon Man would look like. I've seen that picture a lot of times when researching palaeo theories, so I thought it would be a useful avatar.
Maybe your avatar should also come with a disclaimer lol ...
The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:
"The term 'Cro-Magnon' has no formal taxonomic status, since it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. "
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Maybe your avatar should also come with a disclaimer lol ...
The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:
"The term 'Cro-Magnon' has no formal taxonomic status, since it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. "
Actually, that's quite wrong. "Cro-magnon" generally refers to a specific type within the European population, though it can be applied to any palaeo man living in Europe in palaeo times, in a vague sense. Apparently, Finland has more examples of Cro-magnon-looking types than any other country:-
http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/cro-magnon-man-in-europe-and-africa/
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TD, when you did your raw ZC experiment, did you end up having diarrhea?
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Actually, that's quite wrong. "Cro-magnon" generally refers to a specific type within the European population, though it can be applied to any palaeo man living in Europe in palaeo times, in a vague sense. Apparently, Finland has more examples of Cro-magnon-looking types than any other country:-
http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/cro-magnon-man-in-europe-and-africa/
Again you're confusing theoretical anthropological theories, vs real archaeological evidence
Cro-magnon are a theoretical, fictional group of people created by anthropologists & other crackpot darwinian theorists
As my quote on archaeology makes it VERY clear, & proves my point, cro-magnon's have no formal taxonomic status
Perhaps you should stop trying to promote facts based on complete & utter fiction, which is anthropology & start relying on an EVIDENCE based science, like archaeology
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TD, when you did your raw ZC experiment, did you end up having diarrhea?
No. I don't recall diarrhea as one of my symptoms. Actually, by the very end of the various trials, I was always eating so little food in general because I'd developed such a huge revulsion for any animal food whatsoever, that not much came out the other end(not constipation, just much less going in and therefore much less going out).
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Again you're confusing theoretical anthropological theories, vs real archaeological evidence
Cro-magnon are a theoretical, fictional group of people created by anthropologists & other crackpot darwinian theorists
As my quote on archaeology makes it VERY clear, & proves my point, cro-magnon's have no formal taxonomic status
Anthropology is just as valid as archaeology. There may be a few frauds like Margaret Meade but the vast majority provide very reliable data. As regards your pointless claims re Cro-Magnon not having any separate taxonomic status as a species or subspecies, that is, of course, entirely irrelevant. There are huge variations within specific ethnic groups, whether asian or caucasian or african etc., with specific, easily identifiable subtypes such as the Cro-magnon or Ainu or Hottentot etc. in them. To deny this, is just ignorant.
Incidentally, the other readers might be interested in the various facial reconstructions of Cro-Magnon men in Europe. Here's a classic example thereof:-
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/1350865/36968/Artists-reconstruction-of-a-Cro-Magnon-an-early-version-of
They all show similiarities such as big brow, wide face, general mesomorphic appearance etc. I'm not suggesting all humans in Europe looked like that, of course, just a specific type/ethnic group.
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I've been doing raw ZC for 3 weeks and this week, I had a bit of diarrhea, it was tolerable at 1st but yesterday it was pretty bad. I also had very little energy, no hunger, difficulty sleeping, so i ate some fruit yesterday and feel better already. It sounds like i've run into the same kind of troubles you did, do you know if anyone else on this forum experienced that too? Hopefully adding fruit will allow me to eat raw meat again without having diarrhea. I've had raw meat many times before doing raw ZC and never had this problem.
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I've been doing raw ZC for 3 weeks and this week, I had a bit of diarrhea, it was tolerable at 1st but yesterday it was pretty bad. I also had very little energy, no hunger, difficulty sleeping, so i ate some fruit yesterday and feel better already. It sounds like i've run into the same kind of troubles you did, do you know if anyone else on this forum experienced that too? Hopefully adding fruit will allow me to eat raw meat again without having diarrhea. I've had raw meat many times before doing raw ZC and never had this problem.
Oh, plenty of others have reported these issues in the past such as Guittarman etc. A few such people experience the negative side-effects only a few days of going without any plant-foods at all, but most tend to get the nasty side-effects starting from the 2nd week onwards. Things started going really badly for me when I entered my 3rd week of raw zero-carb and subsequently steadily worsened.
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Things started going really badly for me when I entered my 3rd week of raw zero-carb and subsequently steadily worsened.
William would say that this was still the adaptation. ;)
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I've had to add stuff like cream, bee pollen, basically tons of fat with highly nutritious bioavailable sugars, such as bee pollen & propolis, or a drop of royal jelly
Exercise also seems to stop people from craving carbs, especially on a zero carb diet
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Exercise also seems to stop people from craving carbs, especially on a zero carb diet
A don't think so. When you exercice you need some amount of carbs, so if you don't eat them the craving will appear sooner or later.
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didn't have diareaha, but had to lay on the couch for a weekend with no energy. The body has to develop mean for using fat as fuel. I would say it is adaptation. look at the accounts of Stephason's men. They all went through similar experiences.
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exercise does help. It gets the blood and lymph moving, moves the intestines, gets oxygen to the brain etc. Just don't do alot. Walking is sufficient. The tendency in the beginning is to just sit and lay around.
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Craving doesn't have to be for carbs. It could be also for more protein - I had got it.
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When i exercise, i never get cravings for carbs for the rest of the day, it's only when i dont i find myself thinking of eating crap lol
Mainly because you're using your fat reserves far more efficiently for energy, then if you sit around
In order to use fat for energy efficiently you need to expend alot more energy, exercise is a part of that expenditure
Sedentary & endemic carb in tissue, brings on cravings for carbs, as a low exercise body burns fat far less efficiently, cravings for carbs, ie energy which uses less effort to use, occur
Fat is also far efficient then carbs in terms of density
Carbs have 4 calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram
On a ketogenic diet, ie zero or low carb, diet, with exercise you're getting double the amount of calories by burning 1 gram of fat, then you would by burning 1 gram of carb's or sugar
Sedentary lifestyles crave carbs & sugar, because of their inability to use fat efficiently, even with ketogenesis, or on a low carb diet
Why people like aajonus or people who find exercise unhealthy, is because of the periodicity or their biological clock, after a term of ketogenesis, ie eating fat as a fuel, being stationary or sedentary forces them to use alternative forms of energy from their liver & muscle, which are different types of sugars from regular carbs, but still burn alot faster then fat
They would need prolonged exposure to exercise to allow their bodies to use energy from fat, when stationary or sedentary, as theyre bodies have adapted to processing sugars stored in their muscle liver etc., when sedentary or stationary
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I've been doing raw ZC for 3 weeks and this week, I had a bit of diarrhea, it was tolerable at 1st but yesterday it was pretty bad. I also had very little energy, no hunger, difficulty sleeping, so i ate some fruit yesterday and feel better already. It sounds like i've run into the same kind of troubles you did, do you know if anyone else on this forum experienced that too? Hopefully adding fruit will allow me to eat raw meat again without having diarrhea. I've had raw meat many times before doing raw ZC and never had this problem.
When a junkie addicted to heroin does cold turkey, he goes through withdrawal symptoms; if he takes heroin the withdrawal symptoms disappear. It's that simple, except that you got your fix from carbs.
All of us doing RZC went through this.
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Except there seemed to be something else for me... Has anyone here had braising steak? The fat in fat doesn't taste nice, and is basically the same as the fat around kidneys and the heart. I was doing alright. Mainly I wasn't having that much fat because mostly I was eating this braising steak, or lamb which had fat like that too and I knew it would make me ill, but occasionally I'd force myself to eat a bit more of the fat than I could handle and I'd get ill. About week 3 I had way too much, and I was out with a proper fever then... Sent me back to square -5 -_-
During the 3 weeks I was doing lots of exercise, and never wanted carbs... I wanted fat.. but none of the fat I had tasted nice and it was bad so I mainly stuck to protein, so I had little energy(but even less when I had suety fat since it made me ill). I was much stronger, but when not doing exercise I was very cold... Eating the fat from lamb/braising steak would make me cold, or have no effect, where as the fat from rump steak(which I could only afford reduced) made me feel energetic. I struggled to believe it was raw as it tasted a bit like cooked fat, it was soft and yellowy too.
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I started having a look at what Dr. Cordain has to say about "Paleo"...well I found this
1) A lifetime of metabolizing glucose and stored muscle glycogen. When you get your only carbs from fruits and veggies, the carbohydrate content of the diet is severely reduced, and thus may initially lead to low blood sugar and lethargy.
2) The inability of peripheral tissues (i.e. muscle) to effectively use beta oxidation of intramuscular triglyceride as a substrate because flux through these pathways has been neglected for a lifetime. Once dietary CHO is reduced, then muscle must rely upon lipolysis from adipocytes as the major energy source, along with esterification of these free fatty acids at the muscle/blood interface in order to increase the intramuscular triglyceride pool.
This process takes about 1-2 months to occur in typical muscle glycogen compensated Westerners, and longer for women than men. Increasing the fat content of the diet and increasing fruit intake during the transitional phase will probably help with these energy issues.
But then again get your own "Paleo Diet Update" from him - I don't know...we talk about meat and fat - he believes low fat and all kinds of plants and fruit; if I go looking for wild plants and fruit I won't find any at this time of year...on top of that what about digestion!
Nicola
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A don't think so. When you exercice you need some amount of carbs, so if you don't eat them the craving will appear sooner or later.
There's a big deal of difference between minor transitional symptoms as experienced by those who've successfully transitioned to raw zc, and the massive health-problems incurred by the majority who don't do well on RZC.
I continued the diet for a further 2-3 weeks in 2 of the trials. Of course, others have gotten even worse health-problems at an earlier stage, only a few days into the diet, so have had to give up earlier than me, or face hospitalisation in the end.
I gave rzc diet the benefit of the doubt when I tried it, much like with the raw-dairy-heavy Primal Diet. But , in the end, I had to give both up or end in the morgue. There's a limit to dietary fanaticism, and when one's health is completely compromised, it's wise to try something else.
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There's a big deal of difference between minor transitional symptoms as experienced by those who've successfully transitioned to raw zc, and the massive health-problems incurred by the majority who don't do well on RZC.
I continued the diet for a further 2-3 weeks in 2 of the trials. Of course, others have gotten even worse health-problems at an earlier stage, only a few days into the diet, so have had to give up earlier than me, or face hospitalisation in the end.
I gave rzc diet the benefit of the doubt when I tried it, much like with the raw-dairy-heavy Primal Diet. But , in the end, I had to give both up or end in the morgue. There's a limit to dietary fanaticism, and when one's health is completely compromised, it's wise to try something else.
Exactly, you need a broad spectrum of nutrition & bacteria, even with raw meats, limiting it to muscle meat, you severely limit your food groups, such as proteins & fats
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how do you eat the tip of an ox tongue? my teeth can't.
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how do you eat the tip of an ox tongue? my teeth can't.
Well, I just cut up the tip off with a knife , then cut it in two and ate those 1 at a time, just bolting them down. You really don't need to chew if the chunks are small enough.
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I was talking about rawpalaeo sleeping-patterns in a previous thread. 1 thing I noticed about myself is that while I sleep a lot less than in pre-SAD days(even taking into account the chronic fatigue I had in pre-RPD days), I tend to wake up fully alert if I'm in a tent or if I'm facing a large window directly, and usually at break of dawn, even if I've gone to sleep past midnight. Conversely, if I'm in a darkened room with no sun's rays coming in, I can take till 8.30am to wake up, sometimes 9am, anmd initially feel rather tired.
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Could there be anything wrong with eating tongues (from lamb and ox) as my main source of fat? I currently don't have access to a good source of fat or fatty meat, the meat i eat (ground horse) is very lean.
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Could there be anything wrong with eating tongues (from lamb and ox) as my main source of fat? I currently don't have access to a good source of fat or fatty meat, the meat i eat (ground horse) is very lean.
Nothing wrong at all. I've depended almost wholly on raw tongue during many periods in which raw suet or raw marrow became unavailable for whatever reason. It's an excellent source of raw fat(if grassfed/wild).
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One of the things that has brought me much joy in life in the last decade has been the website allexperts.com. Not only do I enjoy answering questions on diverse subjects such as science fiction books but I've also found it most useful for asking questions on subjects I'm not too familiar with. If you happen to be expert in some obscure subject(even if it's beekeeping or stamp-collecting or trainspotting etc.!), I would strongly urge you to volunteer on that site. I've always loathed the concept of charity in the form of giving money to others, as I find those types to be reminiscent of the utterly evil Mrs Jellyby of Charles Dickens fame, but volunteering information for free seems to be a worthwhile undertaking.
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I'm about to go for a week's skiing so will be unavailable for any queries from members during that time. However, I have 1 minor thing to add to previous posts. I'm generally convinced that palaeoman ate aged raw meats much of the time, pre-cooking, given the obvious lack of fridges in those days. I therefore recommend that people age their raw meats a bit before eating. I do that from time to time, and I see it as a way to speed up/improve digestion. It's probably not necessary for me to do so while I'm still young, but I suspect that as I reach middle-/old-age I will benefit even more from increasing this practice as older people often slowly develop impaired digestion over the years(though that might be solely due to ingestion of cooked foods, of course).
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I therefore recommend that people age their raw meats a bit before eating.
My recommendations are the same.
But this is one of the biggest anti-social issues.
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My recommendations are the same.
me too!!
But this is one of the biggest anti-social issues.
i know!.. i can't let anyone see inside my fridge, lol. (well, my meat is aging in the fridge and not room temp... is this okay??)
if my kitchen were to be observed, would someone think i just have a really well-fed dog??
Enjoy the slopes TD!
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i know!.. i can't let anyone see inside my fridge, lol. (well, my meat is aging in the fridge and not room temp... is this okay??)
Aging a meat in the fridge is a slower process and IMO much convenient.
if my kitchen were to be observed, would someone think i just have a really well-fed dog??
I wish I lived near you ;)
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I'm about to go for a week's skiing
I'm curious how you're gonna eat during that period of time.
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I'm curious how you're gonna eat during that period of time.
I buy from a local supermarket over there. There used to be a butcher's who provided me with some high-quality raw meats but it went out of business. I'm able to get hold of things like raw pig's tongues and raw marrow if I order in advance, and of course there's fruit. Meat in Austria is often provided by small-time Austrian peasant-farmers so it's usually of much higher quality than the equivalent nonorganic meats found in UK supermarkets.
On the slopes, I either don't eat anything at all, or I bring some raw meats with me(rather difficult to eat such on the slopes unless I go far off-piste, so I do that rarely) - or I'll go to a restaurant either eating just raw fruit or, occasionally, some of the excellent (albeit cooked) wild game they often have there, such as wild boar or stagmeat, since I can't always get those in the UK.
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Me three. I started air-drying/aging my meats more after I accidentally did it once and found I liked the taste, and realized it made sense to eat aged meat at least some of the time, since Paleo people's meat would have been left in the open air to age, and later smoked--which still involves some air-aging. I find I prefer the taste to damp meat fresh from a plastic package. I've noticed that folks at ZIOH and Dirty Carnivore seem to be aging their meats more these days too. It sounds like DelFuego was influential in that, but I haven't had a chance to read ZIOH much lately.
If I had a meat locker I wouldn't bother with my fridge/freezer unless I felt like eating some semi-frozen meat. Some of my relatives in rural Ireland didn't use a fridge until the 1970s and even when they got one they thought the idea of putting eggs in it laughable (and it really is). My great aunt kept the eggs in a ceramic pot by the door. It's amazing how much I was brainwashed into thinking that things HAD to go into a fridge (the utility companies certainly love the income from it).
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How would i go about air drying ground meat? I don't see how ground meat can be hanged. If i leave it on a plate, the part of the meat touching the plate won't get any air.
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me too!!
i know!.. i can't let anyone see inside my fridge, lol. (well, my meat is aging in the fridge and not room temp... is this okay??)
if my kitchen were to be observed, would someone think i just have a really well-fed dog??
Enjoy the slopes TD!
Should post a photo of our fridges. I'm really caring less and less about my barren fridge. I feel so shit after eating SAD/Cheats I don't feel like socialising anyway so yeah it's this diet or moodiness/stress.
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To age meat don't you really need hooks?
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Not me, I just props me meat on some hunks o' dry suet and turns it. Or ye can use a drying rack, like dis 'ere 'n:
(http://www.shopbakersnook.com/uploaded/images/fountain/2305-229_m.jpg?e=1)
Thar ye be laddies! A more fit use fer cookie racks.
String or rope will also work, and you can probably use tallow to hold ground meat together if you like, but hooks (with solid cuts of meat) are probably best, yes.
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I wish I lived near you ;)
well, you're still welcome anytime! ;)
Should post a photo of our fridges.
lol
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How would i go about air drying ground meat? I don't see how ground meat can be hanged.
http://www.adventuresinrawfood.com/tips-for-handling-and-storage-of-teflex-sheets (http://www.adventuresinrawfood.com/tips-for-handling-and-storage-of-teflex-sheets)
I've never used it for meat though.
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Hey Tyler,
Can you outline the foods you were eating when you were experimenting with a raw zero carb diet?
thanks.
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Hey Tyler,
Can you outline the foods you were eating when you were experimenting with a raw zero carb diet?
thanks.
Raw marrow, raw suet, in 1 trial I had some heated suet, also raw tongue(all grassfed or wild re the meats/organs) plus usual standard raw organic grassfed beef muscle-meat or raw wild game such as raw wild mallard duck or raw wild hare carcasses. I had a little raw oysters and raw turkey breast fillets in 1 trial but only for a very short period as I was scared of the rabbit-starvation issue. Basically I usually had a supply of raw fat available such as raw marrow with my raw meats and the raw meats were relatively fatty in themselves. Dead boring re variety but it was meant to fit in with Stefansson`s claimed fat percentages etc.
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I learned one thing at another forum that might help explain your symptoms that seemed related to Mg deficiency, Tyler. Apparently, some ZCers reported temporary Mg deficiencies, resulting in symptoms like muscle tetany, but they stuck with it and they resolved. One added in a little bit of greens, organs and seafood to her diet and still eats small amounts of plant foods. If you had a deficiency, then it sounds like it was too severe to stick with it without significantly modifying your diet. You're still eating low enough carbs not to have to be concerned about it much anyway. Even Dr. Harris of PaNu, who eats a basically carnivorous diet, doesn't think your reported carb levels are too high (he has called anything up to around 25% carbs OK--and that is your reported approximate max as well).
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Adding in extra magnesium via raw foods(eg raw oysters) certainly did nothing for me at the time. I was also eating some raw organs such as raw kidney and raw liver here and there though I made sure to eat them along with raw marrow and raw suet, so even with a magnesium-deficiency, I should have compensated for it easily with all those foods. And, of course, there`s no chance that I was magnesium-deficient prior to trying those RZC trials given that I was consuming greater amounts of raw oysters etc. than in the trials, and had no related symptoms, beforehand. Still, in a way it`s a good theory as it would explain why my teeth deteriorated so suddenly after a couple of weeks or so. I don`t think I want to experiment with massive artificial doses of magnesium supplements, though, as I doubt all the negative symptoms I had were from magnesium-deficiency.
As for Dr Harris, I view him as having no more than c.25% of the credibility that Aajonus has, and I view AV as a partial crook as it is. I dont buy the 25% figure for carbs as I know some Instinctos who do very well healthwise on high(paleo) carbs. Plus it was mentioned to me by 1 or 2 people in the US who visited raw gatherings frequently that the high carb Instinctos looked much healthier/biologically younger than Primal Dieters of the same age. So much for the Stefanssonian notion that any and all animal protein is 100% healthy. It seems the dairy-free nature of the high carb Instinctos`diets was what did the trick.
My main reasons for avoiding high carb are that I don`t like the large frequent stools and am not interested in the bigger appetites I get when eating lots of raw carbs, plus it saves me money. But there are always situations here and there where some farms I deal with go out of business or change markets etc. etc. where I am sometimes forced to eat mostly just raw fruits for 2 weeks , and that doesnt bother me at all.
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...As for Dr Harris, I view him as having no more than c.25% of the credibility that Aajonus has, and I view AV as a partial crook as it is.
I don't want to argue about it, so I'll just dissasociate myself from this comment, as I don't think it's productive. I know you disagree, so we'll have to agree to disagree on this.
I dont buy the 25% figure for carbs as I know some Instinctos who do very well healthwise on high(paleo) carbs.
I wasn't arguing that you or anyone else couldn't handle more carbs than that. What I meant was, your level of carb intake is not high enough to warrant much concern about potential side effects. I only cited Dr. Harris to illustrate that narrow point, not because I expect you to agree with his broader views.
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My main reasons for avoiding high carb are that I don`t like the large frequent stools and am not interested in the bigger appetites I get when eating lots of raw carbs, plus it saves me money. But there are always situations here and there where some farms I deal with go out of business or change markets etc. etc. where I am sometimes forced to eat mostly just raw fruits for 2 weeks , and that doesnt bother me at all.
What kind of fruits do you eat, say in Winter/Spring?
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I found that my dehydrator rack works nicely for storing my air-drying meats. No need to use fancy ground beef extruders, I just separate ground beef into chunks with a knife and lay them on the racks and either rotate them once the tops are dried, or dry the entire outsides in one go by turning on the dehydrator for a couple hours.
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My main reasons for avoiding high carb are that I don`t like the large frequent stools and am not interested in the bigger appetites I get when eating lots of raw carbs, plus it saves me money. But there are always situations here and there where some farms I deal with go out of business or change markets etc. etc. where I am sometimes forced to eat mostly just raw fruits for 2 weeks , and that doesnt bother me at all.
Closet fruitarian? ;D
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whoa, 2 weeks of fruitarian?
Anything more than a day of fruitarian bothers me.
If I'm over proteinized I can do a 3 day fruit / fatty fruit fast.
More than that really would bother me.
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What kind of fruits do you eat, say in Winter/Spring?
I just eat what`s available. When in Italy, I`ll eat things like watermelon, here in the UK it`s mostly berries like blueberries or tangerines.
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Closet fruitarian? ;D
I don`t always have a choice but to eat raw fruits. Farmers every now and then go out of business or suddenly refuse to sell outside their local area or severe weather might prevent many farmers from turning up at my farmers`market, so then I have a choice of either eating truly revolting low grade grainfed meat from some seriously dodgy butchers in my area or eating cooked junk food or eating raw fruits. Actually, since markets are usually held weekly, a week on fruits is more usual than 2 weeks. I wouldn`t do well of course if I went 3 weeks plus on fruitarian diets, but that situation doesn`t ever occur, of course.
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Couple of admissions:- 1) The only negative thing I've had, long-term, since recovering on an RPD diet, is the fact that as soon as I wake up, if I stay in bed for another 10+ minutes, my back becomes very stiff and aching. Wasn't generally an issue pre-RPD diet, but perhaps my weaker skeletal structure in those days was somehow a benefit in this particular case. Moving down and sleeping on the floor minus a pillow doesn't solve the problem, I usually need a warm bath or just walk around for a bit to get rid of this ache.
Now the above condition isn't, of course, a problem if I just get up immediately and don't ever go in for lie-ins any more, and anyway I don't really need lie-ins on this diet, ever since I got rid of my dairy-related chronic fatigue years ago. It can be awkward, though, if there are others around who are not early-risers as I tend to automatically wake up at first light if I'm in a room with plenty of access to sunlight(and if I go to sleep before 1am).
2) re mistaken feelings of invulnerability:- because doctors in the past were utterly useless in diagnosing, let alone healing, my previous health-problems, I swore over a decade ago, never to see another doctor again. When I did this RPD diet and healed in so remarkable a fashion(I'd originally assumed some conditions I had were incurable at the time), I never got into a situation where I even needed a doctor, so I didn't care until now.... 1 lousy , incompetent skier skied into me and put an end to that. What I mean is that doctors can be useful in cases like car-crashes or similiar accidents re emergency operations, so we shouldn't attack them all the time. Though, when I just recently registered with a doctor for the first time in 15+ years I almost sighed when I was asked whether I was eating a healthy diet or not; I felt almost tempted to say "yes, I am on a very healthy diet, I eat raw meat plus "high-meat"!" etc.
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Though, when I just recently registered with a doctor for the first time in 15+ years I almost sighed when I was asked whether I was eating a healthy diet or not; I felt almost tempted to say "yes, I am on a very healthy diet, I eat raw meat plus "high-meat"!" etc.
LOL I know what you mean. ;D
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E.R. docs are fine.
That is one part of that profession that they do well.
And only that.
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I had an unusual experience when buying a few raw meats today at my local farmers' market. I went to a wild venison stall and asked the girl if I might order some unusual raw organs at a later date such as raw tongue or raw marrow. She immediately mentioned that someone I probably knew/friend etc. had already made orders for such raw organs, even raw testicles(which I find too weird to eat, IMO). Anyway, given that virtually no one else ever asks for raw organs, she immediately sussed that I was a raw-meat-eater, despite my initial vague claim to be doing merely a "palaeolithic diet".
I'd already met 1 other RPDer at the market, and I suspect this is quite another RPDer. Anyway, it does seem as though the RPD/raw-meat-eating community is steadily growing, and not just in the USA, as some years ago, I was virtually certain that I was the only RPDer for many miles around. It's a good thing, in a way. I mean it probably makes it more difficult for a short while to get enough quality raw animal foods, such as raw organs, but at the same time, by creating a target clientele, it makes farmers who, previously, would have simply thrown away most such raw organs, suddenly realise there are some wacky people out there willing to pay a reasonable price for such things as raw heart, raw suet etc, and then we may even get farms who sell mainly to RPDers etc. I've seen this in the US, where NorthStar Bison at one point had a Primal Diet self-label stating proudly that they routinely served Primal Dieters with quality raw meats. I fear AV got them to take it down for some weird reason(he likes to keep the PD logo/concept etc. to himself, apparently?)
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Testicles are tasty. Don't let the thought put you off.
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Testicles are tasty. Don't let the thought put you off.
I've tried stag testicles. They were rock-hard and would have taken ages to chew if I'd taken the bother of doing so. They also were somewhat aged and tasted too rank for me, even though I love some types of high-meat. Plus, on a psychological level, I'm just not comfortable eating animals' private parts; in the case of testicles/penis, it seems almost gay! I'd rather stick to basic meats/organs instead.
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I can assure you that I'm not gay... At first I had that aversion, but it went away pretty quickly. I've only eaten lamb testicles so far. The trick is to slice the skins, there are two layers. Inside there is very soft tissue.
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Raw junk foods:- when I'm unable to get high-quality raw animal foods, I compromise either by buying raw (often nonorganic) fruit or I buy what is more or less raw junk food. That is , I go to a local fishmonger's. Sometimes, they'll have good quality stuff such as raw wildcaught swordfish, if I'm lucky, but at other times, they provide me with raw prawns as I find the rest of their rather small selection to be fish with too many small bones or lacking taste or consisting of farmed salmon etc. The raw prawns are, IMO, raw junk food as I'm sure they are farmed, but it's better than eating cooked foods. I think(?) that farmed shellfish has higher standards than farmed fish re what the creatures are fed on, judging from reports, so it's not the end of the world - and I eat so much raw wild game that I'm not worried about more minor diversions from RPD diet, at times.
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I just paid a regular visit to my local farmers' market. Anyway, I saw a new stall offering organic meats. I was , as usual, highly sceptical, but decided to ask how they raised their animals. Sure enough, I was told that the animals were fed on the highest quality organic grains(wheat etc.) which made groan inwardly . This is, unfortunately, quite common. Those crooked farmers know they can make a better immediate profit if they stuff their animals on grain(and thereby fatten them up faster for slaughter), and they know that most of the public, however health-conscious, have no real clue about the better taste(and better health-benefits) of 100% grassfed meats. Plus, the public are easily conned by the organic status label which they foolishly accept as implying that the animals are all raised on healthy diets.
The most insidious are those farmers who boast that their animals are on grassfed diets but quietly forget to mention that their animals are fed on grains during the winter.
Of course, the farmers are fools as raising their animals on grains, however "organic" those grains might be, means they have to pay much higher costs re curing their animals from grains-derived illnesses.
Anyway, I naturally, bought raw meats from a reliable seller elsewhere in the market who has provided me with excellent-tasting meats in the past. His sheep/lamb are, apparently, raised on grass and stubble turnips, no grains. The meats are not organic(merely "free-range") but are very cheap.
In a way, I'm lucky as the LFM markets, unlike most other shops/markets, have strict rules so that it would be extremely unwise for farmers to lie to customers about what their animals are fed on. That said, I mainly rely on the taste of the meats, rather than a farmers' say-so or some official label like "organic".
There was some talk by the UK Soil Association of creating 5 different categories for the organic label, with the topmost category only being available for raw wild game , the 2nd rank being for 100%grassfed cattle(?) and the like, but it seems not to have gone ahead., unfortunately.
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In a way, I'm lucky as the LFM markets, unlike most other shops/markets, have strict rules so that it would be extremely unwise for farmers to lie to customers about what their animals are fed on. That said, I mainly rely on the taste of the meats, rather than a farmers' say-so or some official label like "organic".
Yeah, I've noticed that some meats sold in the healthfood market taste and look much better than the meats in the supermarkets, and even between the supermarket meats there are differences, with the cheapest supermarket having meats that look fattier and more unpleasant and don't taste as good. My guess is that the cheaper the meat, the more grains/soy/molasses/chicken feces/etc. they are fed. It seems that when it comes to meats you do generally get what you pay for.
I've noticed this with fats too. The suet (perinephric fat} labeled 100% grassfed tastes, looks and feels better than the suet and pork leaf fat labeled organic but not 100% grassfed, and the supermarket suet that doesn't have grassfed or organic labels is the worst of all.
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I've noticed this with fats too. The suet (perinephric fat} labeled 100% grassfed tastes, looks and feels better than the suet and pork leaf fat labeled organic but not 100% grassfed, and the supermarket suet that doesn't have grassfed or organic labels is the worst of all.
Wow... I've never been able to buy suet except on a special offer at the farmers market. And all of the suppliers save one are very unreliable. If it weren't for that one, I wouldn't be able to find any raw animal fat consistently. The hunter said the butcher doesn't give him the suet and they throw away the back fat when taking off the hide! I'd gladly have the grainfed organic stuff in the market if I could..
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Wow... I've never been able to buy suet except on a special offer at the farmers market. And all of the suppliers save one are very unreliable. If it weren't for that one, I wouldn't be able to find any raw animal fat consistently. The hunter said the butcher doesn't give him the suet and they throw away the back fat when taking off the hide! I'd gladly have the grainfed organic stuff in the market if I could..
If people are in a position where they just cannot get hold of 100% grassfed meats/fats, then by all means go in for organic, grainfed meats but make sure to supplement with Mercola's cold-extracted krill-oil capsules so that you get the necessary large amounts of omega-3s. I'm convinced that they play a major role in health, especially in old age.
That said, my own past experience has shown me that even in places where high-quality raw foods seemed completely unavailable at first, that, after long off-line and on-line searches I was always eventually able to find sufficient high-quality foods.
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YMy guess is that the cheaper the meat, the more grains/soy/molasses/chicken feces/etc. they are fed. It seems that when it comes to meats you do generally get what you pay for.
Well, much of the non-organic but 100% grassfed meats I've come across actually have proven to be cheaper than many grainfed meats I've come across. You see with many grassfed animals, one just has to leave them out to graze (for free) most of the time so maintenance costs are lower than with grainfed animals, then there are lower costs re health maintenance etc.
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Another caveat:- I've done some recent experiments with adding sauces and it confirmed what I'd thought before, that adding spices, however raw, distorts the "stop" signal one gets from raw meats so that one inevitably ends up eating more than one should. In short, while newbies should use raw spices at first to get used to the taste of raw animal foods, they should eventually stop doing so, and get used to eating raw animal foods on their own, without any extra spices.
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Well, much of the non-organic but 100% grassfed meats I've come across actually have proven to be cheaper than many grainfed meats I've come across. You see with many grassfed animals, one just has to leave them out to graze (for free) most of the time so maintenance costs are lower than with grainfed animals, then there are lower costs re health maintenance etc.
Interesting. That's not the case in my area, but the USA has huge factory farms that probably have greater economies of scale than the grain-fed cattle operations in the UK. Once again there appear to be major differences between nations.
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Hmmmm....... How exactly does a day in the life of Geoff go? Well, Geoff. What's your average day like from start to end? 8)
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Interesting. That's not the case in my area, but the USA has huge factory farms that probably have greater economies of scale than the grain-fed cattle operations in the UK. Once again there appear to be major differences between nations.
Yes, that makes sense. I've noticed , again and again, that US prices for foods or anything else are always far lower than in the UK because of economies of scale. Makes me envious.
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Hmmmm....... How exactly does a day in the life of Geoff go? Well, Geoff. What's your average day like from start to end? 8)
No different from others except that I eat raw meats.
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Yes, that makes sense. I've noticed , again and again, that US prices for foods or anything else are always far lower than in the UK because of economies of scale. Makes me envious.
The downside of economies of scale is that our foods are probably more heavily processed and chemically laden than any other major nation's.
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No different from others except that I eat raw meats.
l) I should've expected that for an answer.
Aw c'mon Geoff. What's your day like? What's your job? Hobbies? You wake up early, or a late sleeper? Watch TV? That's what I was talking about as far as a day in the life.
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I don't generally disclose much personal info online ever since I once got bombarded with literally dozens of daily e-mails by 1 or 2 individuals. Besides, if you look through my past myriad posts you'll find I disclose rather a lot of details re when I go to sleep etc. Too dull to rehash.
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I don't generally disclose much personal info online ever since I once got bombarded with literally dozens of daily e-mails by 1 or 2 individuals. Besides, if you look through my past myriad posts you'll find I disclose rather a lot of details re when I go to sleep etc. Too dull to rehash.
Good points. Both on the stalkers bombarding your e-mail, and the too dull to rehash.
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Well, my supply of raw wild venison is going to finish in a month, sadly. On the other hand, raw lobsters/crabs will be available from then on.
While I do go on and on about the moral and personal benefits of buying from small-time farmers than from big stores or the larger farms, due to the much higher quality of the formers' meats etc., I also have to admit that it occasionally makes the issue of supply difficult as they often have certain foods only available seasonally or they simply don't have enough animals available for slaughter at certain times. Farmers' markets can also be a problem if the weather is bad(snow often seems to make certain stalls not appear at my market).
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I just came across some reports re UK health service trying to ban nurses from wearing crucifixes, however tiny they might be. This really disgusts me as I distinctly remember when I was recently abroad in that hospital in Zams , that there were large crosses in every room; I even saw nuns walking about the place, obviously doing nursing part-time as well. There's just no good reason for such a ban. Mind you, it doesn't surprise me as most Western European countries have far better health-services, in all respects, than the one we have in the UK.
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Well, here's an article which suggests I should have kept a stiff upper lip instead of complaining re my previous hospital visit:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7544742/Words-can-cause-physical-pain.html
I would disagree, griping about things seemed to give me a greater degree of control, but anyway.....
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lol
I always wanted to sew the dentist's mouth every time I heard the words "this is going to heart", but I know I cant really expect them to be professional communicators.
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I'd mistakenly left some raw swordfish out for 10 days in the fridge so it's stinking but not as much as I'd expected. Anyway, I've eaten part of it and was surprised to find that it didn't taste as bad as I'd thought. When I first tried making "high-meat" 3 years into this diet, I'd noticed that I still didn't like the taste of raw aged fish(however slightly aged), so gave up on it and only ate fresh raw seafood, but it seems that I may have gotten used to it by now. Anyway, it looks as though I may sooner or later be able to eat century eggs and other raw aged animal foods instead of just aged raw tongue/heart.
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How long would you age the eggs?
I assume you don't plan on leaving them for 25 years.
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No, just for a month or more.
I've become abit lazy and non-innovative with this diet and sometime I may go in for raw meats aged for a whole year but for now I'll just stick to the c 1-month period.
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I do eat high fish from time to time.
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In my last shop, I found out that the fishmonger at my farmers' market no longer sells mussels as he claims they're no longer in season. They are sold by other fishmongers still,but he says it is unethical(and I have to admit that the mussels I've got from other sources, off-season, have never been that good anyway re taste; same with oysters off-season, though the latter may have been farmed as well). Anyway, try to buy foods in season, when possible.
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I just got a surprising remark from a local assistant in a nearby shop. He approved of my buying lots of fruit. He said he did that too for health. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd been gorging on too much raw meats in the past 10 days and had run out, so that I was merely eating raw fruit until Sunday came and I could buy some high-quality raw meats again.
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I find that I now spend something like 170 pounds as a maximum every 2 weeks, so that's 85 pounds a week max(raw meats/raw fruits and mineral-water). This is about the same as I spent on food on a SAD diet of junk-foods, breakfast-cereals and milk, and tapwater. If one includes the money I spent on additional sweets/chocolates etc., my current diet is actually less expensive than in pre-RPD days.
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I think I'm eating more than I need. I've not been doing my whole-day fasts to the extent I used to do in the past(3-4 days a fortnight it used to be), so will want to reintroduce that element into my diet.Also, I want to see if I eat less if I don't drink water during each meal. I suspect that water-intake during a meal tricks the body into eating more than it requires.
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I fast every day and love it. Tyler, I dropped the ghee and lard and am now fully raw meat and raw fat.
I make a decent salary, but have no access to raw grassfed beef fat. What would you think about getting at least non-feedlot raw beef fat from Whole Foods? Or I could order the U.S. Wellness suet. I would not want the tallow, as that is cooked / processed.
Right now I eat mainly Trader Joe's 80/20 ground beef, raw of course, which is not grassfed but is organic (per TJs) and I eat bone marrow fat raw (not grassfed either). I take Carlson cod liver oil. I was doing raw egg yolks, but since I've been air-drying my ground beef, a wet texture turns me off (which is why I struggle with liver).
I wish to stay raw zc. Do you have any suggestions for me?
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I fast every day and love it. Tyler, I dropped the ghee and lard and am now fully raw meat and raw fat.
Good that you dropped the lard and ghee. As regards ghee, I've always been sceptical that processing a harmful food somehow makes it better; there's always trace residues of allergens/toxins. In the case of lard, I hear there's even hydrogenated lard, quite aside from the grainfed issue.
I make a decent salary, but have no access to raw grassfed beef fat. What would you think about getting at least non-feedlot raw beef fat from Whole Foods? Or I could order the U.S. Wellness suet. I would not want the tallow, as that is cooked / processed.
I heard 1 or 2 vague claims that US Wellness meats were not perhaps high-quality(ie not 100% grassfed). On the other hand, I've had comments from others who say it's absolutely fine. I can't verify this rumour as I'm not in the US, of course.
As for Wholefoods, they are notoriously known as "WholePayCheck", and I simply don't trust larger businesses as being too concerned re quality of raw meats. Plus, I once went into the 1st Wholefoods store to be opened in the UK and was horrified to find no organic or grassfed meats available, just overpriced "standard" meats.Same with the fruit which was all "conventional" and similiarly over-priced.
I would have thought that the best option would be to order from some grassfed meat farm such as Slanker's or NorthStar Bison. Granted, there would be delivery-charges, but if the farm is near your State, those might be cheaper. Eatwild.com has suitable sources.
Right now I eat mainly Trader Joe's 80/20 ground beef, raw of course, which is not grassfed but is organic (per TJs) and I eat bone marrow fat raw (not grassfed either). I take Carlson cod liver oil. I was doing raw egg yolks, but since I've been air-drying my ground beef, a wet texture turns me off (which is why I struggle with liver).
I've just checked Carlson cod liver oil details online. I don't see any mention of raw, just a mention of "high-quality". I note that a "steam-extraction process" is used to get the cod liver oil so I'm not surprised there is no mention of raw in the material. I would strongly suggest you instead buy the genuinely raw, fermented cod liver oil from "Green Pastures". You might also consider Mercola's cold-extracted krill-oil as the latter contains even higher levels of omega-3s, so that is useful in times when you can't get hold of raw grassfed meats.
As for the grainfed issue, I'm not sure how you can stand it. I used to be forced to eat raw, grainfed marrow in Italy on vacation before I found my current source of grassfed horsemeat, and it was so bland in taste I had to force myself to eat it.
Re drying etc.:- If you can't handle raw liver, you could always mix a little of it into a food-mixer with raw meats, raw marrow etc. Also, I really recommend raw beef/ox tongue. While sources of 100% grassfed raw marrow are extremely difficult to find(I love the stuff), raw (100% grassfed) beef tongue is much easier for me to get hold of. The raw tongue is a bit slimy and most newbies feel the need to cut out and avoid the darker, stringier parts on the underside of the tongue as well as the hardened tip of the tongue, but raw tongue is something like 50-60% raw animal fat and excellent in taste. So, no need to go for raw liver or kidney as yet.
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Thank you, Tyler! You would think living outside Boston that there would be more sources available for grassfed beef, but unfortunately, that is not the case. l) I do feel better dropping the ghee and lard. I want to be a raw girl.
When I finish this cod liver oil, I might do what you suggest for Greenpastures. I was also thinking that since I love ground beef, maybe just asking the butcher to grind up the liver. I could just take it in teaspoons. You need very little liver to get a lot of Vitamin A.
I've never had grassfed, so I don't know the "taste" difference between grassfed and grainfed. I love TJ's ground beef when it is air-dried and I love the bone marrow I have. I've done a lot of research and know grassfed is ideal, but I still think raw ZC is healthier than 99% other ways of eating.
I have access to an Asian market (H-Mart) that sells a variety of organs (not grassfed, of course). They even have pig uteri (which I never tried, of course). The only organs I have tried and liked were chicken gizzards and chicken hearts, lightly cooked, but those do not appear as nutritious as liver. I must eat liver somehow! -d
Oh, and I am working on revising my Raw ZC Testimonial for you. I should get you that soon, and you can post it with some bikini pics of me so everyone can see that we are not all a bunch of frail ugly things :P
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Oh, I was just kidding on the bikini thing, too. I have a wide-range of pictures; whatever would be appropriate. :D
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Thank you, Tyler! You would think living outside Boston that there would be more sources available for grassfed beef, but unfortunately, that is not the case.
have you checked the eatwild site? there are probably 10+ grass-finished farms in Mass on that site alone, some maybe an hour or more outside the city, but if buying in bulk should be cheaper than shipping from USW or Slankers.
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Heck, Massachusetts has the best grassfed meat and suet I've tried yet (www.hardwickbeef.com). The downside is, now I'm spoiled, so if I ever lose that source it will really stink. For a little while the suet wasn't being vacuum-packed (I think the market chops it up and puts it in the individual packages) and it got damp and nasty, but luckily it's back to being vacuum-packed again.
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a wet texture turns me off
i have no issues with liver texture but when it is frozen or half-frozen it feels different, not wet as you described it. i used to dislike this slimy kind of texture but i trained myself and now i have no problem with it. it was all in my head.
i would avoid H-mart. recently bought eggs in there and they had really funky taste. i think they use the most cheapest sources.
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Oh, I was just kidding on the bikini thing, too. I have a wide-range of pictures; whatever would be appropriate. :D
Well, when I first did my own testimonial for rawpaleodiet.com I used a photo of me in bathing-shorts with my upper body naked, so it wasn't exactly formal.(I find bathing-shorts a real pain as they are uncomfortable and only useful for prancing around in shallow water, not for real long-distance swimming. Unfortunately, almost all male bathing-trunks I see on display abroad these days are of the ludicrous almost bikini-like types designed to emphasise the size of one's genitalia, and I'm too embarassed to wear them.
The old rawpaleodiet.com site had photos, not the new one for some reason. Maybe I can fix that somehow. I'll try to do the Loren Cordain review first though.
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Well, we have a new UK election coming up. Normally, I have certain vague ideals but am now wondering if I should select my vote solely on the basis of whether a particular party is potentially friendly to a raw, palaeolithic diet. That would rule out the Labour party as it has had a notorious vegetarian in charge of the agriculture ministry for some time and is anti-hunting(I like my raw wild hare carcasses, I'm only against hunting scarcer species) but I don't know re all the others. Well, I'll see what their farming policies are online, and then decide.
Of course, I find the choices always rather limited. I wish I could have many other options:-(eg:-vote for an old Athenian-style oligarchy instead of modern 2- or at most 3-party democracy or even better, vote to more or less abolish the power of central government so that I and others can personally decide what rates of taxes we really want to pay, how much to pay the local police-force etc.)
*That reminds me, the day of the UK General Election is also the 2nd anniversary of rawpaleoforum.*
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Well, the UK election was a disaster for pretty much everyone, it seems, not just me.It's clear we need the boundaries changed as currently Labour MPs require far fewer people to vote them into Parliament than as regards other parties.Plus we need proportional representation in order to get any decent voting rights at all.
Back to rawpalaeo issues:- I've just made an order for live whelks, not sure though if I'll get them in 2 weeks time. The guy I ordered wild hare carcasses from simply didn't turn up, which was a pity but I got 20 lovely raw scallops to make up for the lack. I consider it absolutely essential to have a sizeable proportion of my diet in the form of raw wild game or raw, wildcaught seafood. I have never trusted even the organic/100% grassfed-meat-farmers and, getting hold of raw wild game is great as I can be sure that the animal had the highest possible level of nutrition. Besides, it's also a question of genetics. Most domesticated animals, even if on healthy diets, are the result of many millenia of inbreeding and selecting of specific genetic traits by humans, so that their meats can never be as good as wild game.
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1 thing I have noticed about water is that London(ie recycled) tap-water is awful re taste and I find myself feeling a bit down , mood-wise, after drinking it so avoid it like the plague. I find neutral ph mineral water or acidic mineral water to be alright re mood-issues but to taste rather bland so I only drink what I need of it. Alkaline mineral-water(PH 7.4 and above) tastes better and gives me a slight boost in mood - it becomes a really pleasurable experience to drink that kind of water. The best mineral-water of all is 8.2 to 8.4(I gather from other sources that PH 8.5 and above makes the water taste increasingly foul as it becomes too alkaline. Anyway, for UKers, I heavily recommend my current brand of Montgomery Spring mineral water at a PH value of 8.24. I have to walk a bit to get hold of it, but it's well worth it, and it's dirt-cheap being 1.19 pounds sterling for a 5-litre bottle.
*Another thing:- I always try to drink my mineral-water when it's cold so store it in the fridge etc. at times. This makes it as cold as the water from mountain-streams/rivers which our palaeo ancestors drank. I just think that's important.
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I just had a recent, rather unpleasant experience. I do a Q&A for raw diets on another site. 1 person recently asked me about her health-problems and mentioned what foods she was eating. I'd suggested removing the raw dairy and raw veggie-juice as they are the no1 and no2 foods, respectively, which cause RVAFers the biggest health-problems. She then did a follow-up question which had no questions in it but which was basically a commentary stating that she actually did fine with raw dairy and raw veggie-juice, which was fair enough. I naturally assumed that , like some other posters in the past, she hadn't realised how to leave comments(re thanking and rating the volunteer), and had mistakenly used the follow-up-question option to leave that comment. Since she had not actually asked a question in that follow-up and had not been interested in taking my advice re raw dairy/veggie-juice and had seemed to have made a mistake, I naturally didn't see what else I could add, so I naturally clicked the "you're welcome" option (which says something like thanks for your comments or some such, used mostly for when people wrongly give comments in follow-ups, a quite common occurrence at times).
The trouble is the woman became completely paranoid and absolutely ballistic and falsely assumed that I had merely clicked the "you're welcome" option to avoid her subsequent comment appearing on the eventual Q&A to be published on allexperts.com. She then found out how to actually make a real commentary on my answer and said some paranoid rubbish about me trying to avoid her follow-up comment being published. The trouble is that the policy of the website is that readers' comments can only be wiped out if the reader in question asks for them to be removed, the volunteer has little say. I have no way of contacting the questioner and telling her what really happened as the e-mail-address is, of course, hidden, and , given her appalling behaviour,I doubt she'd see reason.
I volunteer for a few subjects on that site(not just diet) and enjoy answering questions on diverse subjects.I have, at times, come across people who've disagreed with me on a number of issues.They have all been polite(I remember 1 fervent pro-cooked-advocate using words like "respectfully" and so on) - if, at times, I didn't find the right answer or only provided half of the answer, they would often leave a polite comment which stated that I couldn't help them or went into more detail. I never had a problem with that. The big problem is those people who you want to give an honest answer to but who don't want to read what you have to say, due to their own inbuilt biases. The site recommends, in such cases, to just use the option "explain why you can't answer this question", so that you can give an honest answer without fear of being given an unfairly low rating by someone who expected to be given an entirely different answer. The trouble is one can't always be sure, from looking at the questions, which of those questioners are lacking in integrity.
My options are limited if I can't get that site to delete that false comment. I can , of course, just decide not to be rated in future. I think that would wipe out all previous ratings/comments and prevent people from writing anything in future(well, except in the reader feedback section of the Q&A archive, I suppose. That wouldn't be a bad thing as I at least have control over the reader feedback section re deletion etc. But it means that, just because 1 really lousy questioner has reacted in an absolutely paranoid way, all other questioners are prevented from adding their 2 cents re my answers, whether it is in the form of correcting something I said or just adding some helpful info or commentary to add to my answer or whatever.
And, if she had been remotely competent and not paranoid, she could at least have simply left a comment stating that my advice to give up raw dairy and raw veggie-juice was incorrect as she did fine on those 2 foods.
More to the point, I have made it clear re Q&As in the past that I am not a Primal Diet-fan so I do wonder if she was just some Primal-Diet-fanatic just itching to leave a bad comment on the site.Does seem odd.
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She's eating raw veggie juice, so I chock it down to poor nutrition leading to brain damage. Even as a vegetarian I never drank insulin, er, juice.
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Well, they wrote back telling me that the comment in question was deleted. A minor miracle , really, as even if the questioner is in the wrong, there is a custom of almost never deleting their comments. Well, I've been getting more questions in general so I suppose it's natural for more crank-callers to turn up, as a result. I've also been getting a few really bizarre questions in the last 2 years from people asking me for advice on a supposedly "healthy" l) diet consisting of lucozade and other energy drinks and there are others who don't bother to read my profile properly and assume automatically that I am a volunteer for 100% raw vegan diets. I just forward them to more suitable diet-volunteers.
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OK, next issue:- one of the commonest issues that rawpalaeodieters have to face is strenuous efforts to block their kind of dietary foods. For example, there were recent attempts to ban raw oysters in Florida, along with bans on raw dairy in France etc. These all failed, but only because a few brave people in those communities dared to fight back. In future, I expect all rawpalaeos in a relevant regional area to sign-up/phone etc. against any and all attempts to ban any kinds of raw foods in their particular region. If you don't wish to do that, I can assure you that raw foods in general, such as raw meat/raw organs, will eventually become less available as a result of such dastardly behaviour.
*To give an example on my part:- I volunteered for an interview for a national UK newspaper re a raw-meat-based-diet-article. This got published, albeit with some significant b*llsh*t involving some lies/ludicrous exaggerations on its part, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. I also have critised my local farmers' markets(on the lfm.org.uk website) re the issue of stalls offering 100%-genuine-grassfed meats. but they didn't do anything to improve that situation. On the other hand, other rawpalaeos' demands have made other stallholders in that farmers' market be more serious re offering a wider variety of raw organ-meats, so that has helped. In short, if you want a good deal re your own, raw, palaeolithic diet, then make sure to advertise or make known your preferences etc., as it all helps you and other RPDers in the long run.
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I am definitely not shy for sharing my preference for eating raw or super rare meat. I tell anyone who asks exactly what my diet consists of and the health and body composition benefits I receive from it. I don't give an inch to them on CW.
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OK, minor confession:- I can handle 1 or 2 types of raw suet, but most sources of raw suet, however grassfed/organic, make me have frequent, liquid yellow diarrhea afterwards, convincing me that I do not digest/absorb most raw suet properly. In future, I will stick to raw tongue, raw marrow and raw, fatty muscle-meats, instead. The only raw suet I ever had no problems with was always heavily dried-out. It's the wettish suet that is the problem, I think.
*I will be mostly incommunicado from 22nd June to 1st August for a number of reasons, 1 of them being vacation. I might be able to check e-mails once a week during that period but that's about it.
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So why wouldn't you eat those 1 or 2 types of raw suet that don't give you problems?
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So why wouldn't you eat those 1 or 2 types or raw suet that don't give you problems?
I can easily get hold of raw fruits and raw seafood, but raw high quality meats/fats/organs are always temporary sources. Either they get moved to a different farmers' market or the parrents retire and fold the farm or choose to only sell locally etc.. I suppose I could experiment with ordering raw suet from twenty different farms in order to find the right kind of suet to order , but what's the point? I don't much like the taste of raw suet anyway and I'd rather have things like raw tongue etc. instead.
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Ah, I see, so you lost those two sources and aren't interested in searching out a new source because you are satisfied with your current alternatives. That's understandable.
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What kind of fat is that around the heart (beef)?
Is that suet too?
I like it a lot, just tried it for first time a few days ago. Tasty. :)
Inger
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No, suet is kidney fat. Never really liked the raw white fat around the heart and just cut it off usually.
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tyler, do you now have an energy surplus?
what i mean is, before you had chronic fatigue-like symptoms, right? and now, do you have more than enough energy to go through your daily life AND do extra work/exercise if you choose to?
perhaps this answer is buried somewhere in the 47 pages of your journal...?
thanks!
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Well, I am not superman. I have a lot more energy these days and feel even more pumped when eating "high-meat" and have enough energy for exercise if I want to. I suppose I should do even more exercise, though, as it would make me feel even better.
1 thing I have noted re exercise is that on a rawpalaeo diet my strength gains come faster than on a SAD diet. Though, of course, if I don't exercise at all after a while, then the gains reverse themselves.
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thanks, good info
currently i'm eating 1 pound of ground grass fed meat a day (beef, lamb, or vitellone) and i'm wondering if i should do more. its certainly a grand experiment.
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thanks, good info
currently i'm eating 1 pound of ground grass fed meat a day (beef, lamb, or vitellone) and i'm wondering if i should do more. its certainly a grand experiment.
Just eat as much as your body tells you. That's all you need. If you start over-eating you'll be having problems
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Just eat as much as your body tells you. That's all you need. If you start over-eating you'll be having problems
most of the time when i attempt that i either eat too much or too little. my body doesnt seem to "know" y'know.
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thanks, good info
currently i'm eating 1 pound of ground grass fed meat a day (beef, lamb, or vitellone) and i'm wondering if i should do more. its certainly a grand experiment.
How much fat / carbs do you eat with that? I eat about 500g meat + 200g fat in a day.
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most of the time when i attempt that i either eat too much or too little. my body doesnt seem to "know" y'know.
Yes it does, you just need to learn how to listen.
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Insert Quote
Quote from: dsohei on June 06, 2010, 05:23:04 AM
most of the time when i attempt that i either eat too much or too little. my body doesnt seem to "know" y'know.
Yes it does, you just need to learn how to listen.
I don't agree with this...when you're starting out your body is conditioned to a completely different diet, and not adapted to it. Even when you're into it, I find it very easy to crave the wrong foods.
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I don't agree with this...when you're starting out your body is conditioned to a completely different diet, and not adapted to it. Even when you're into it, I find it very easy to crave the wrong foods.
Nobody is talking about cravings. Your mind is in control there most of the time.
I'm talking about the amount of food to eat, i.e. when to stop eating
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I don't see the distinction between listening to the body and cravings exactly, but I don't think the body will necessarily tell you how much meat and fat to eat at first. Even paleo people had limits imposed by nature, so it's hard to say how they would cope with unlimited whatever. Maybe, Maybe not.
When I tried that, I ate too little calories and went into starvation mode or didn't eat enough fat, or wanted to carb binge. If it worked for you great, but I've had more success measuring meals.
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I always weigh my food. It may seem pedantic, but that way I don't have to worry about it. Otherwise I will eat too little and get fatigued during the day, or I'll eat too much and feel sluggish from that.
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I do have to force myself to eat more than my body signals for, or I lose too much weight--and I already have what some people would consider an "emaciated" body (though that's largely because I was born very thin and with fine bones and very little muscle tissue). I also have to drink more than my body calls for to minimize dehydration (and even doing so I'm still chronically slightly dehydrated). The Instincto instincts idea doesn't work for me--probably due to my body being messed up in some way. I know this is hard for people who have perfect instincts to understand, but I hope they will try to understand that not everyone has perfect instincts--even many months after adopting a RPD.
I think the key lesson to bear in mind, once again, is to speak for one's own experience, rather than for everyone.
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I do have to force myself to eat more than my body signals for, or I lose too much weight-
That is the clear sign of digestion inefficiency and/or energy utilization. I was in exactly the same boat. I am slowly gaining weight eating more or less the same amount. I do not eat if I do not feel hungry.
I would like to think my digestion improved.
If and when I get to 10lb gain I would post more details.
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I do have to force myself to eat more than my body signals for, or I lose too much weight--and I already have what some people would consider an "emaciated" body (though that's largely because I was born very thin and with fine bones and very little muscle tissue). I also have to drink more than my body calls for to minimize dehydration (and even doing so I'm still chronically slightly dehydrated). The Instincto instincts idea doesn't work for me--probably due to my body being messed up in some way. I know this is hard for people who have perfect instincts to understand, but I hope they will try to understand that not everyone has perfect instincts--even many months after adopting a RPD.
I think the key lesson to bear in mind, once again, is to speak for one's own experience, rather than for everyone.
Sounds like you have poor nutrient absorption
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I've often wondering about this same issue and the above seems not to match up with conventional wisdom or science. I have never used a scale in my life with food, but since I get most of my intake from markets that labeled weight etc.. its easy to carve out through a visual estimate. Plus even if I had no health or body-weight concerns, I would have to estimate what I want to get per week or per order etc...
I find that there is a conscious amount to eat more than I care to at each meal (usually 2) but the total amount ends up being pretty low if one is to compare it to an average male of my size and build with the same goals. I suspect I have at least some digestive/absorbtion issues, but it seems like the tipping point of what turns into steady weight gain is still lower, and my body seems to be satisfied eating alot less - just not enough to corespond with those goals, so I dont know if this can be distilled entirely to inefficiency or deficiency. Although 'low' appetite might be indicating something. conversely, eating huge amounts of food w/o gain, or being constantly hungry, or visible signs of poor quality in tissue: skin, hair etc...or just obvious things like undigested matter in stools or indigestion symptoms, might be further confirmation.
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Instincts are good...but I don't think they'll always serve you right. A lot of animals overeat in captivity. I'm not saying we don't have any good instincts worth listening to, just that I don't think the idea that everything can be perfect and natural works.
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PaleoPhil and Josh, I answer to your last posts here :
explain-instincto-diet-fully/msg37600 (http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/instinctoanopsology/explain-instincto-diet-fully/msg37600/#msg37600)
Cheers
Francois
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OK, tomorrow I am going abroad for a while. I really, really want to avoid the Internet until c. early or mid-August , so please don't PM me or ask me any questions. I might be able to access the Internet once every 10 days or so, but I would far prefer not having to answer any questions and just quickly read a few e-mails each time, nothing more.
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Have a good time!
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Sounds like you have poor nutrient absorption
Correct, and for probably my entire life, though it’s much improved over what it had been--as do others. That's one reason why relying on instinct alone can be dangerous for myself and probably others and why it's important that people not tell everyone in general to rely solely on instincts.
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Well I'm back if only for a few minutes. I'm eating raw horsemeat which is great stuff. Plus raw samphire, raw limpets and raw sea-urchin eggs and the like. The only minor flaw was remembering to bring a passport to the internet cafe. The fools in the Italian government passed a law, you see, which requires proof of identification in case you might be an Islamic terrorist or some such nonsense. Thank god we don't have such b****cks in the UK.
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raw samphire, raw limpets and raw sea-urchin eggs and the like.
What do urchin eggs taste like? I don't think I've ever seen nor had a chance to try any of those, but my mouth is watering. I almost always like a new seafood. I'm going to check if my oysters are still good. They're in a plastic bag, yuck.
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Difficult to say, I can never properly describe taste - a slimy, more sweet variation on raw oysters?
I note we have 1000 members, not bad.
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Back for an hour or so. Been eating raw horsemeat and swimming in the sea and local mountain streams.
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Interesting to see how old people over here routinely complain re temperatures above 30 degrees being too hot. Aajonus stated that the glands are the most affected by cooked diets, and it seems he was right as the glands control so many processes such as body temperature etc.
Well, not much to report from over here, except that sun-exposure seems to always make me glow with health. Perhaps it should be made legal for people to go around town with their tops off in summer so that we can all get enough sun.
Back in 2 weeks.
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Well, if my skin is bare, high temperatures are nice, and give me no discomfort. Just wear a t-shirt though, and aside from insulating me unnecessarily, it is stopping me from perspiring effectively.. Then I get very uncomfortable. And and almost everyone over here wears a t-shirt no matter what the temperature...
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Just had yet another accident when going down a steep path from some rock-pools up a mountain-stream. My blasted, faulty sandals came apart(the kind that have an adhesive section) so I fell off to the left and got a branch gouging 2 minor wounds in my skull and face, respectively. Got stitched up as a result of competent doctors and assistance of some Swiss tourists. Just need stitches removed in a few days.
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Well, it seems I am now in the process of doing a top-secret RPD experiment. I will reveal all in a few months or so.
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Oh shit, sorry you had an accident. Look forward to hearing about the secret masterplan.
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Williams pemmican diet?
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Williams pemmican diet?
Maybe, maybe not. I'm keeping schtum until a few months from now. All, I'm saying is that it's sure to surprise a number of people when I reveal it.
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I read this article recently:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7922422/Jellyfish-invasion-closes-beaches-across-Spain.html
I noticed, this year, that jellyfish have now come in from the open sea near my house in Italy, and got stung a couple of times. Previously, jellyfish only came close to shore after a violent storm. The trouble is that overfishing has killed off so many species of fish that jellyfish are the only ones left so they breed out of control. What it means for me is that the raw seafood I get in the Mediterranean will get ever more expensive, and in 10 years or so, I will likely not be able to swim into the open sea without getting stung by a jellyfish.
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Just got pilloried via PM by a raw-dairy-consumer who claims he'd be dead if he hadn't gone in for raw dairy. I should have pointed out that he'd have been even healthier if he'd cut out the raw dairy and gone in for rawpalaeo foods instead.Well, I for one am proud to have gone on an anti-dairy crusade over the years as so many RVAFers have turned out to do badly on raw dairy.
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My biggest problem has always been that I cannot easily tolerate hot weather. I was much worse pre-RPD diet, though. These days, I find I get too hot if I eat a lot of raw meats. Raw seafood is "less worse" and eating raw fruit doesn't cause any issues. My best bet is to eat as little as possible(easy as the higher the temperature, the lower my appetite is). Well, other than getting a permanent job in Iceland or Siberia.
Oh, and I'm going back to using raw herbs to a small extent, not as condiments or supplements, as such. Just for experimenting. For example, sage may be useful re relief from high temperatures.
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My ongoing experiment has produced some interesting results. So far, I've had no negative symptoms. Will reveal all details in a month or two.
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My biggest problem has always been that I cannot easily tolerate hot weather.
1-2 months ago you said that you tolerated hot weather in Italy very good.
And that this kind of intolerance is caused by some adrenal problems.
Or maybe I have misunderstood you.
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1-2 months ago you said that you tolerated hot weather in Italy very good.
And that this kind of intolerance is caused by some adrenal problems.
Or maybe I have misunderstood you.
I am better now at tolerating hot temperatures, but not in an ideal way. I am sure that if I were in August in Italy, that temperature-intolerance would be an issue.
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the best athletes are good examples of muscle performance that is easily bettered by a machine or by wild animals.
the best athletes are not good examples of ==optimal health==
your role model depends upon your goal.....
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TD, I think you wrote about eating goat when in Italy? But what about seafood?
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TD, I think you wrote about eating goat when in Italy? But what about seafood?
Raw seafood is too expensive in Italy. I allow myself the occasional raw swordfish but that's all, mostly. Only goat I've had so far has been cooked, as I need a car to drive into the hills to get hold of raw goat from farmers.
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The scar from my most recent accident is still showing. I hope it'll eventually go away as it's right next to my left eye.
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Well, my experiment is going well, no disasters as yet. I'll go on for another month, 2 max.
I need to finish that blasted Weston-Price review. I feel bad for not doing so before.
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I just tried adding some unusual mustards as sauces to my raw meats. Stupid idea, I just wanted to experiment because I was bored. Needless to say, I woke up this morning, feeling as hungover as if I'd eaten cooked foods.
I may end my experiment in 2-3 weeks and report my results. It'll be interesting.
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I just wanted to experiment because I was bored.
You was bored of pure meat without any additives?
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Just got pilloried via PM by a raw-dairy-consumer who claims he'd be dead if he hadn't gone in for raw dairy. I should have pointed out that he'd have been even healthier if he'd cut out the raw dairy and gone in for rawpalaeo foods instead.Well, I for one am proud to have gone on an anti-dairy crusade over the years as so many RVAFers have turned out to do badly on raw dairy.
What happened while you tried raw dairy?
I'm trying raw dairy as we speak and so far I'm doing fine. According to Vilhjálmur Stefánsson this it he optimal diet for Icelandic people. The heardsman diet. Meat and milk. Although I'd prefer to drink sheep milk or goat milk if it were possible.
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You was bored of pure meat without any additives?
No, I was just bored in general. I actually like the taste of most of my raw meats as they are mostly wild. I find grassfed raw meats somewhat bland, to be honest, though nowhere near as bad re taste as raw grainfed meats.
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What happened while you tried raw dairy?
I'm trying raw dairy as we speak and so far I'm doing fine. According to Vilhjálmur Stefánsson this it he optimal diet for Icelandic people. The heardsman diet. Meat and milk. Although I'd prefer to drink sheep milk or goat milk if it were possible.
Basically, all the problems I had pre-RVAF diet, which had slightly subsided on a raw-dairy-free/juiced-veg-free version of the Primal Diet, suddenly reappeared with a vengeance(ie extremely painful stomach aches, very painful joints, increased fatigue etc. etc.) I stuck it out for another 6 months as I was hopelessly addicted to the raw dairy(cravings for the very food one is allergic to are very common) and because AV and others assured me that such issues would eventually go away. Eventually, I grasped that they were liars and went rawpalaeo. Something like 80% of my 100 or so health-problems vanished within a 4 month period after cutting out raw dairy.
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I find grassfed raw meats somewhat bland, to be honest
IMO grass-fed horse meat is definitely not bland.
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IMO grass-fed horse meat is definitely not bland.
True, that's the only exception I can think of, really.
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Well, I suppose it's time to reveal the details of my experiment as I would like to end it. Well, first of all, it was not really an experiment but something forced on me:-
It all started at the end of July just as I was about to go back to the UK from Italy. I had developed a severe, regular pain in what seemed to be below my stomach. An acquaintance thought it was due to the excessive amounts of watermelon I'd been eating and I didn't think that was possible. Anyway, as soon as I arrived in the UK, I realised the pain originated in the bladder area as I felt like I was pissing glass. I also had a crap and some stringy thing came out the back end. At first, I was deluded and thought it might have been due to some undigested suet or something. I very quickly came to realise that this was a tapeworm.
Anyway, the sharp pain in my bladder and painful urination soon disappeared completely within 2 more days, but the tapeworms came on with a vengeance, I hasten to add that they did not affect me in any way after that short-term pain episode. I did not feel less healthy or anything.
Anyway, as time went on, the tapeworm segments came out in huge clumps at times when I deposited stools. At other times, I would get an unpleasant effect whereby somehow the tapeworm deposited tiny half-an-inch segments in my underwear. Initially, I had thought that wouldn't be an issue unless I farted a lot so I cut down heavily on raw fruits which are the only things in my diet other than raw veg which make me fart a little(cooked foods make me fart a lot, even cooked meats, but naturally I avoid those as much as I can). However, the tapeworms seemed to deposit those segments even when I wasn't farting at all during the day, at random intervals. Those segments naturally did not smell terribly nice and I am not terribly happy with the result. If the segments came out solely during farting or visits to the bathroom/toilet I wouldn't have minded, but this sort of thing is terribly unaesthetic.
I am pretty certain that some of my raw horsemeat in Italy was responsible as that was most of what I ate there as regards raw animal foods.
At any rate, this is the first time this has happened to me in almost a decade of RVAF diets, so, clearly, this is a very rare phenomenon. Other than that temporary painful episode, I haven't had a health issue with the parasites, as such(maybe the tapeworms somehow got temporarily "hooked" onto the bladder by mistake? I have no idea re the cause).
Because of that issue re segment-deposits, I chose to go in for wormwood tinctures as an anti-parasite remedy but it hasn't worked at all. I think a combination of 3 herbs is needed(cloves, wormwood and black walnut), but only wormwood is easily available, and the 3 in combination are hideously expensive online. I have already asked someone else to send me a prescription against tapeworms - it is pharmaceutical but I'm not bothered since the herbal approach doesn't seem to have worked.
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oh gosh, i can't even imagine. hope you find your remedy soon!! maybe gs knows something?
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Hi Tyler,
These things happen. Whether on cooked or raw.
The parasite cleansers I have tried for myself and my kids are:
http://www.humaworm.com
with support forum at http://www.curezone.com/forums/f.asp?f=757
Humaworm capsules is freshly made on order. When it arrives you use it immediately, you cannot stock it.
and
http://www.barefootherbalistmh.com
with support forum at http://www.curezone.com/forums/f.asp?f=626
(you have to call and ask for access, tell them you want to buy the dewormer, I think they have a discount if you buy 4 bottles.)
Barefoot Dewormer is liquid in bottles and may be stored for many years, definitely great to have for emergencies. Saved us a lot of grief from amoeba with my wife and my sister in law who are cooked eaters.
Both programs are for 30 days.
One possible side effect I noticed is possible constipation. But you can eat loads of watermelon for that not to happen. It's important you poop once a day while on the anti parasite program. If you don't feel the urge to poop, just do a warm water enema.
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Tyler, also something to try would be MMS Miracle Mineral Supplement. I've had huge success with cleansing myself of infections, candida and warts with it, and going on reports its very effective for parasites also.
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Tyler, also something to try would be MMS Miracle Mineral Supplement. I've had huge success with cleansing myself of infections, candida and warts with it, and going on reports its very effective for parasites also.
I think MMS is too powerful for a parasite infestation. MMS is like a blitzkrieg?
You don't want to be overloaded with parasite body parts in your blood.
This is how Andreas Moritz saw the old powerful parasite cleansers.
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Tyler, also something to try would be MMS Miracle Mineral Supplement. I've had huge success with cleansing myself of infections, candida and warts with it, and going on reports its very effective for parasites also.
On a separate note, I am very interested in sourcing MMS in Manila, can you point me to Manila contacts?
You can also try posting a new MMS thread in the off topic section and tell us more about your MMS experience!
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You now have tapeworm eggs locked up in cysts around your body tissues.
What do you think would happen if you didn't do anything to 'deworm' your digestive tract?
You must say more about your thoughts on this issue.
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You now have tapeworm eggs locked up in cysts around your body tissues.
not really, cysts are part of the 2nd phase that develop in the intermediary hosts. so no, he does not have cysts, he is simply releasing eggs and whatever is left of the worm. nothing much to worry about, tapeworms are usually harmless, with no symptoms.
the only way not to ever get one is to have meat frozen. otherwise it is just a matter of time to get one since there is always some percentage of wild game that carries it. there are no 100% worm-free wild animals. animals on organic farms have much higher tapeworm occurrence since they eat very close where they poop.
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I suggest:
- papain
- bentonite
- activated charcoal
the only way not to ever get one is to have meat frozen
But it's really not a good option to eat only prefrozen meat.
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I think you can avoid future parasite infestations by moving your bowels once a day at least.
Don't give the eggs the chance to hatch inside of you.
Poop them away every day.
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I am pretty certain that some of my raw horsemeat in Italy was responsible as that was most of what I ate there as regards raw animal foods.
Maybe your eating a large amount of meat at a time could also contribute to that.
I remember Aajonus was talking about the parasites being needed for cavemen because they ate more rarely and they ate a lot in one sitting. They would aid with digestion.
Of course, if they spread too much it can be unpleasant. Have you tried eating garlic/onion/horseradish?
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I am now experimenting with herbal teas(buying the raw wild herb not just processed teabags). I don't get a nasty reaction to them like I do with coffee or some types of alcohol, so I'd rather have tea in some social situations. I can't always drink mineral water after all in other locations, and tapwater is foul in London.
Also, I never really experimented properly with herbs before. In my supplement-heavy days pre-rawpalaeodiet I would almost wholly go in for highly processed herbal supplements which were completely useless or worse.
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I got some anti-parasite drugs and they worked, and I am now free of them.
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I got some anti-parasite drugs and they worked, and I am now free of them.
Do you think that you would not cope with the tapeworms without these drugs?
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Do you think that you would not cope with the tapeworms without these drugs?
I have no actual symptoms from the tapeworms so I'm not worried re that aspect. It's just that I find it extremely disagreeable to have segments of tapeworm exiting onto my underwear at odd times, so, for aesthetic reasons I don't want that - I mean, what if I went to a gym and disrobed, only for segments of tapeworm to fall out onto the floor in public etc.?
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I got some anti-parasite drugs and they worked, and I am now free of them.
That was fast.
How long were you on the anti-parasite drugs?
What brand, what dosage?
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That was fast.
How long were you on the anti-parasite drugs?
What brand, what dosage?
3 days. I was meant to take 2 tablets a day for 3 days. No idea re brand(praziquantel, perhaps? It was a foreign brand.
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3 days. I was meant to take 2 tablets a day for 3 days. No idea re brand(praziquantel, perhaps? It was a foreign brand.
Please dig up the name.
Where did you buy it?
Could be useful for others.
Oh and congratulations for clearing it up!
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congrats TD :D
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Quick recovery. Congrats.
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I'm glad you're feeling better.
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I repeat, I wasn't feeling bad during the parasite-phase(well, except for that minor incident at the very start). The only real issue I had was the unaesthetic aspect of having tapeworm segments falling off into my underwear.
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Please dig up the name.
Where did you buy it?
Could be useful for others.
Oh and congratulations for clearing it up!
I am pretty sure it was praziquantel - anyway, I thrw it away and didn't really have a good look at the brand name.
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Errr yuck! thanks for giving me some truly revolting mental images
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Praziquantel (Biltricide) is an anthelmintic effective against flatworms. Praziquantel is not licensed for use in humans in the UK; it is, however, available as a veterinary anthelmintic, and is available for use in humans on a named-patient basis.
Pretty interesting. Thanks for the info!
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Is there any natural alternative to Praziquantel (which is a synthetic drug)?
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Is there any natural alternative to Praziquantel (which is a synthetic drug)?
I think a combination of wormwood, cloves and black walnut is required but I could only easily get hold of wormwood which didn't work.
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Errr yuck! thanks for giving me some truly revolting mental images
Well, it was about time for someone to report experiences with parasites. At any rate, it's obviously a very rare phenomenon given that I never had a similiar incident in the previous 9 years of being a RVAFer. And it's clearly not as bad as portrayed in the media.
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I'm curious about the age of that tapeworm. How long has it been present in your body?
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At any rate, it's obviously a very rare phenomenon given that I never had a similiar incident in the previous 9 years of being a RVAFer. And it's clearly not as bad as portrayed in the media.
Never noticed any parasite in soon 24 years of RVAF. But I'm very strict with the quality of meat: no grain fed, no heated animal fodder. Aren't papaya and melon seeds good in preventing or eliminating parasite's infestations?
Francois
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Hey Tyler...I was wondering if you'd thought of doing something with the fresh ingredients cloves etc...like powdering them.
Also this site has a tincture...not sure if that's expensive for the amount you use it or not.
http://mammaearth.com/tinctures/parasitexa-100ml/prod_59.html
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Never noticed any parasite in soon 24 years of RVAF. But I'm very strict with the quality of meat: no grain fed, no heated animal fodder. Aren't papaya and melon seeds good in preventing or eliminating parasite's infestations?
Francois
I heard pineapples.
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Aren't papaya and melon seeds good in preventing or eliminating parasite's infestations?
Papaya seeds are good at it. They contain papain, which digests structural proteins of the parasites. Vit. C and amygdalin are the catalysts of that process.
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I'm curious about the age of that tapeworm. How long has it been present in your body?
Since end of July.
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Hey Tyler...I was wondering if you'd thought of doing something with the fresh ingredients cloves etc...like powdering them.
Also this site has a tincture...not sure if that's expensive for the amount you use it or not.
http://mammaearth.com/tinctures/parasitexa-100ml/prod_59.html
Well, I got rid of the parasites so no need for the above. I already used wormwood and pumpkin seeds and they didn't work.
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Since end of July.
How do you know that? Have the tapeworm been examined at the laboratory?
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How do you know that? Have the tapeworm been examined at the laboratory?
The tapeworm segments only started appearing just after I arrived back in the UK in the beginning of August. Plus, that pain in the bladder I mentioned , which preceded the arrival of those tapeworm segments, only happened a couple of days before the 1st of August. So, given that the tapeworms seem to reach adult stage in only a few weeks, it is likely I got infected at the beginning of July, while in Italy, so the horsemeat must be responsible.
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Well, I will likely be taking some time off in a few days from the Internet. Probably back by end of October or thereabouts.
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Damn I have to go abroad on Tuesday and leave my computer behind. I hate that, but have to deal with certain matters. Will be back onlin in November, some time.
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Damn I have to go abroad on Tuesday and leave my computer behind. I hate that, but have to deal with certain matters. Will be back onlin in November, some time.
Get an Ipad or an iphone or a galaxy or itouch.
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Get an Ipad or an iphone or a galaxy or itouch.
I dislike such things. All I will tolerate, technology-wise, is a desktop PC and a mobile phone(without camera). I'm too much a technophobe as regards other gadgets.
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Pleasant travels, and 'see' you in November :)
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Well I am now in Vienna and restricted to a french-style keyboard which tricks me into quickly typing "q" instead of "a" etc.
Benefits/Disadvantages:- there is no real organic meat market in Austria. There are free-range raw eggs but that is about it. Good thing is that raw wild game is more easily available than elsewhere with a huge local market and even a nearby supermarket providing high quality raw wild game(raw wild boar/raw venison/raw stagmeat) along with raw quail eggs I can also get in the UK etc. Astonishingly, the raw wild game from the supermarket is half as expensive as in the market, which is the opposite of what one would find in the UK.
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TD, how many languages do you speak?
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TD, how many languages do you speak?
Well, English is my mother-tongue - I am relatively fluent , but not perfect in German(cannot understand dialect), and need to spend a couple of weeks speaking French for me to be comfortable speaking it again. Due to learning Latin and Ancient Greek at school I can understand many words in other European languages though am not confident enough to speak in them.
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I just watched a part of a documentary on some herders in Kazakhstan who raise eagles, stolen from the wild, to hunt or track wild game. It was done in that pseudo folksy, Noble-Savage-like manner, which really irritates me. Like with all HGs, they have no real respect for the environment(though admittedly HGs are far less worse than more urbanised peoples in that regard, due to lack of technology). The Kazakhstanis were shown as hunting down wolves for their pelts. Part of the reason is, of course, that like all owners of domesticated animals like cattle or sheep, they have an innate dislike of predators like wolves. Urbanised peoples are similiar re tolerating "cute" animals but not giving a damn about other wild animals which are as, or more important, to the environment.
I have a silly fool of a relative who is a real believer in the ridiculous Noble Savage theory. She reminds me, of the ghastly Mrs Jellyby , for those who have read Charles Dickens' "Bleak House".
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I just watched a part of a documentary on some herders in Kazakhstan who raise eagles, stolen from the wild, to hunt or track wild game. It was done in that pseudo folksy, Noble-Savage-like manner, which really irritates me. Like with all HGs, they have no real respect for the environment(though admittedly HGs are far less worse than more urbanised peoples in that regard, due to lack of technology). The Kazakhstanis were shown as hunting down wolves for their pelts. Part of the reason is, of course, that like all owners of domesticated animals like cattle or sheep, they have an innate dislike of predators like wolves. Urbanised peoples are similiar re tolerating "cute" animals but not giving a damn about other wild animals which are as, or more important, to the environment.
That makes me sad too, how is a bunny better then a wolf dammit.
Cats, though, are perhaps some of the most liked predatory animals in the modern world.
Thats amazing about the eagles. In Montreal there was this guy who walked around the city with his pet Raven on his shoulder. The raven was not tied up/leashed and its flight feathers were not removed, it just liked hanging out with this guy. I saw this guy with the raven on a crowded subway station, the bird was amazingly calm on his shoulder amongst all the people. I wonder what he feeds it, rotting meat would seem suitable.
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I have been thinking of doing a general list of rawpalaeo sources by country section or series of threads. Obviously, many sources are temporary with farms going out of business here and there etc. But there are permanent websites such as eatwild.com, listing grassfed sources, and there are permanent farmers' markets and the like. This would make it far easier for rawpalaeodieters to quickly find high quality raw animal foods while travelling or relocating.
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I just had one of those cringing, embarassing talks with my mother where she insisted on mentioning my infancy. Well, apparently and unsurprisingly, I had had stomach-aches when she weaned me away from raw mother's milk and onto cooked/processed foods. She was told by the doctor, beforehand, that stomach-aches were usual when weaning a child. More proof that we are designed to eat raw foods.
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Did my duty re wikipedia. The raw foodism page is fine as it is, but I changed a photo on the paleolithic diet page as it tried to state that it, a photo of a raw vegan dish, was representative of a raw, palaeolithic-type diet. The new photo is of a sashimi meal.
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I wish just 1 to 3 people here would pull their fingers out and help me every now and again with the raw foodism wikipedia page. It is dispiriting to be the only one with enough interest in the RVAF diet community, and individual integrity, to be willing to contribute to the raw foodism wikipedia page.
The sole consolation re the raw foodism wikipedia page is that I have made great efforts to include very solid references to any pro-raw comments made on the raw foodism wikipedia page. By contrast, efforts by the anti-raw crowd have been very poor, with only weak scientific references being provided for their side. And references are the real backbone of wikipedia, in the long-term.
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What's my incentive to help when you frequently insult me and don't even try to understand what I say? It's kind of like punching someone in the gut while asking him why he doesn't do more to help and then covering your ears when he tries to answer. l) I help my family, friends and those who treat me with respect. For example, I provided some info to Dorothy and Tsurugi at the GITMR forum because they are very friendly and asked nicely, and because Dorothy's mother has a very serious health issue that she had asked for help with. Maybe if you were friendlier and more respectful with people they might help more? It seems worth a try.
Besides, I know the raw aspect of the diet has been the crucial aspect for you, but for me it's so far been more like it has been for Lex--a small though helpful part of the benefit--whereas the Paleo and carnivore aspects have been much more helpful. You seem to find that hard to believe when anyone reports that, but for me it's also true so far. I suppose if I were to sign up onto Wikipedia and engage in the diet wars there I should contribute first and foremost to a Paleo or carnivore entry rather than a raw entry.
It's probably futile anyway, as the vegan, vegetarian and PETA extremists tend to be committed fanatics who will do anything to prevent the truth about the benefits of meat getting out and probably will just delete anything positive we might post about meats. Have you heard how they censored out info from Denise Minger, Dr. Eades and others on the China Study Wikipedia entry? Wikipedia appears to be run by those who are willing to put the most time into it, which tends to mean the most committed fanatics (and perhaps some well-paid minions).
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I wish just 1 to 3 people here would pull their fingers out and help me every now and again with the raw foodism wikipedia page. It is dispiriting to be the only one with enough interest in the RVAF diet community, and individual integrity, to be willing to contribute to the raw foodism wikipedia page.
The sole consolation re the raw foodism wikipedia page is that I have made great efforts to include very solid references to any pro-raw comments made on the raw foodism wikipedia page. By contrast, efforts by the anti-raw crowd have been very poor, with only weak scientific references being provided for their side. And references are the real backbone of wikipedia, in the long-term.
I didn't even know you wanted help, or how to help. If you posted this previously, then I missed it. And if you posted this in your journal only, then I understandably missed it :D
I've offered to help with writing and/or editing a long time ago, but I'm not the person to step on toes (I thought this was YOUR thing). Or maybe you're gender biased and don't want my help anyway.. IDK.. but I'm happy to help, just tell me so.
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What's my incentive to help when you frequently insult me and don't even try to understand what I say? It's kind of like punching someone in the gut while asking him why he doesn't do more to help and then covering your ears when he tries to answer. l) I help my family, friends and those who treat me with respect. For example, I provided some info to Dorothy and Tsurugi at the GITMR forum because they are very friendly and asked nicely, and because Dorothy's mother has a very serious health issue that she had asked for help with. Maybe if you were friendlier and more respectful with people they might help more? It seems worth a try.
Besides, I know the raw aspect of the diet has been the crucial aspect for you, but for me it's so far been more like it has been for Lex--a small though helpful part of the benefit--whereas the Paleo and carnivore aspects have been much more helpful. You seem to find that hard to believe when anyone reports that, but for me it's also true so far. I suppose if I were to sign up onto Wikipedia and engage in the diet wars there I should contribute first and foremost to a Paleo or carnivore entry rather than a raw entry.
It's probably futile anyway, as the vegan, vegetarian and PETA extremists tend to be committed fanatics who will do anything to prevent the truth about the benefits of meat getting out and probably will just delete anything positive we might post about meats. Have you heard how they censored out info from Denise Minger, Dr. Eades and others on the China Study Wikipedia entry? Wikipedia appears to be run by those who are willing to put the most time into it, which tends to mean the most committed fanatics (and perhaps some well-paid minions).
I do understand, that's the trouble.
Whatever the case, the raw foodism wikipedia page isn't actually "my" page. It is a public resource and the idea is that raw foodists should contribute as a community so as to avoid misleading info fooling newbies to RVAF diets. So far, apart from 1 other RVAFer(who is now usually absent from rawpaleoforum these days due to other commitments), the only help I have had is from various raw vegan members. If some raw vegans can back me up re deletions of biased, anti-raw/pro-cooking stuff and useful input (of admittedly pro-raw vegan scientific studies) etc. etc., then that is an interesting contrast to those RVAFers who don't want to help.
If you feel like contributing instead to the cooked, palaeolithic diet page, feel free to do so. I have already put in some sentences on that page,mentioning RVAFers as well as deleting some biased stuff and inserting a rather interesting rebuttal by Cordain to a recent claim re the grain-consumption a 100,000 years ago article.
As for the raw and palaeo aspects, while the raw aspect was and is indeed more important for me re health, the palaeo aspect was also vital as if I had continued to opt for raw dairy or go in for 100 percent raw vegan/fruitarian diets, I could not have healed properly. And besides, one of the main reasons for rawpaleoforum being set up was because I thought there was too much of an anti-palaeo bias in other RVAF diet forums.
(In case people are worried re this taking up too much of their free time, don't worry. The key re wikipedia is interpreting the rules in one's favour(not difficult as the pro-cooked faction have so few solid references backing up their claims in contrast to the more solid pro-raw refs); and also it's a case of strength in numbers. So, all you really have to do is check the raw foodism page each once a month or so(if there are 10 or more RVAFers involved), and perhaps revert deletions then etc., and to turn up in the discussions section of the raw foodism page to back the pro-raw side when an argument comes up and I mention it here.Judging from past events, major discussions of that sort only turn up something like once or twice a year. The raw foodism wikipedia page is not a very popular article, being considered somewhat obscure, so it's worth a little effort, IMO.
OK, I'm now posting some comments on the raw veganism discussions page as there is some dodgy pro-cooking info there re Wrangham. I am Loki0115 over there.
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I didn't even know you wanted help, or how to help. If you posted this previously, then I missed it. And if you posted this in your journal only, then I understandably missed it :D
I've offered to help with writing and/or editing a long time ago, but I'm not the person to step on toes (I thought this was YOUR thing). Or maybe you're gender biased and don't want my help anyway.. IDK.. but I'm happy to help, just tell me so.
I would love it if you contributed. I was always a bit annoyed at being the primary contributor to rawpaleodiet.com re certain articles, and wanted others to have a go as well. if you have any ideas re contributing articles on rawpaleodiet.com, just get in touch with Edwin re passwords etc. As for the raw foodism wikipedia page, just checking it only once a month is fine, and, should some major discussion turn up(won't happen more often than once or twice a year max.), I would appreciate it if you helped debunk the anti-raw side's points.
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I should also add a note of caution:- anything new one adds to wikipedia should have strong references accompanying it. That makes it more difficult for others to arbitrarily delete one's contributions. Also, it would not be a good idea to simply delete all anti-raw stuff. By allowing some anti-raw claims(re bacteria/parasites etc.) in previous dicussions, I made it possible to keep the crucial " potential harmful effects of cooked foods" section, despite a number of desperate attempts by some heavily-biased anti-raw people to get rid of that section.
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Why don’t you talk about it here http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/off-topic/raw-foodism-wikipedia-alterations/
or here http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/off-topic/wikipedia/
or here http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/wikipedia-being-vandalized/
Or even better, merge all these topics?
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I don't like resurrecting old threads, really.
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I've just heard about a type of raw foodism I had never heard of before:- "vitarianism", which consists of raw fruit, raw vegetables and raw dairy. The guru thereof seems to have been Johnny Lovewisdom.
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Wikipedia is a bit addictive. I found other articles that desperately needed editing such as the wrangham article, and the article on his book and there is an odious cooking/evolution article which really needs to be fixed too. Fortunately, such subjects are not popular within wikipedia, so, hopefully, I will be able to retain the general themes I entered over a long period of time.
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I do understand, that's the trouble.
The fact that you can insult someone like that and expect them to help you clearly shows otherwise.
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The fact that you can insult someone like that and expect them to help you clearly shows otherwise.
Again, the whole point of this request is to help the rawpalaeo community as a whole, not me. After all, I don't own wikipedia. As far as remarks re past insults, in those cases, I merely pointed out certain flaws in your reasoning, and you had too thin a skin vis-a-vis those issues, not being capable of admitting you were wrong etc.
If I might echo your own previous exchange with KD(in other words "practice what you preach", hint, hint), kindly restrict such pointless, faulty arguments re "straw men" etc. etc. to PMs to me, not wasting other peoples' time on open forum. Besides, this is my own journal, after all.
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You ASS-U-ME you understand, but based on what you've written you don't and you aren't aware that you don't and obviously aren't aware of how negative and insulting your language often is. I know you don't own Wikipedia. Have you ever heard the saying you can catch more with flies with honey than with vinegar?
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I am thinking of bringing some raw beef jerky for a future skiing trip and/or a mountain-hiking trip in the summer. I would preferably want to avoid making my own raw beef jerky as I presume it would require a dehydrator or somesuch and waste a lot of time. Does anyone here in the UK know of a reliable source of raw beef jerky that is without preservatives etc?
In past hiking trips I would just bring some raw tongue with me and finish it in 2 days. Trouble was that it caused a bit of a stink even when the relevant plastic containers were washed. I certainly want to avoid pemmican.
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Have you ever heard the saying you can catch more with flies with honey than with vinegar?
And now for something completely different. ;)
Flies are actually more attracted to most vinegar (malt, balsamic, basically any non-white vinegar) than they are to honey. I just did a quick search to find a link but nothing is coming up. Give it a shot though and you'll see. A poor thought out idiom. ;D
I am thinking of bringing some raw beef jerky for a future skiing trip and/or a mountain-hiking trip in the summer. I would preferably want to avoid making my own raw beef jerky as I presume it would require a dehydrator or somesuch and waste a lot of time. Does anyone here in the UK know of a reliable source of raw beef jerky that is without preservatives etc?
Build a Lex Box. $10 in parts and you're set. Certainly cheaper and more consistent than anything you could source for purchase. :)
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I will take it! I will take it! I will take the ring to Mordor. Though... I do not know the way.
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Build a Lex Box. $10 in parts and you're set. Certainly cheaper and more consistent than anything you could source for purchase. :)
I suppose I will have to, as, after a few checks, jerky seems ridiculously expensive to buy in shops.
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And now for something completely different. ;)
ITS!
Flies are actually more attracted to most vinegar (malt, balsamic, basically any non-white vinegar) than they are to honey. I just did a quick search to find a link but nothing is coming up. Give it a shot though and you'll see. A poor thought out idiom. ;D
Build a Lex Box. $10 in parts and you're set. Certainly cheaper and more consistent than anything you could source for purchase. :)
a person I work with is fond of leaving things like fruit in paper bags and forgetting about them. We have one of those vinegar traps now that is basically a funneled piece of paper in a jar of vinegar, works like a charm.
the lex box also works like a charm. I'm a bit wary of leaving it for extended periods without my watchful eye because the meat does seem to drip on the bulb and I have just used a clamp light which could theoretically shake loose to the sides, but maybe that is paranoia and I guess could be solved by mounting with the L bracket.
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I've never contributed to wikipedia so I guess I wouldn't any useful credibility. I think something about the endless mutability would grind my gear...no matter how quickly I could type responses. heh heh -X
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I have already had people trying to change some of my contributions to wikipedia pages. The page on Richard Wrangham's book had someone saying on the discussions page that richard wrangham had a serious theory. Most likely this guy is Wrangham's PR agent given the incredibly pro-Wrangham bias that was previously in the article.
*edit* I have just had someone delete some of my attempts re the control of fire by early humans page. In the process, I noticed that some subtle, pro-wrangham/pro-cooking fanatic had deliberately inserted dead links or pro-wrangham articles in place of my previously solid scientific references damning Wrangham's claims. I had not noticed this when I copy-and-pasted my stuff from another wikipedia page. I find this kind of subtle anti-scientific trolling to be truly odious. People like that should be shot.
I can see that what we need is a sort of wiki. We already have rawpaleodiet.com where I have put in a few articles on the subject of rawpalaeodiets. I need to include more essays on things like the heat-created toxins in raw foods. I would also appreciate any constructive criticism of such articles. I am well aware that I am no decent author and, at the time of writing some of those articles, they had been reworded into an awkward, more populist style by someone else, so i am sure they need improvement.
The only problem re future articles is that my current PC cannot seem to view the new rawpaleodiet.com so that I may have to write articles and provide links to references but get someone else to insert them into rawpaleodiet.com We'll see.
OK, for now:-
Update the anti-wrangham/advent of cooking article.
Write a very lengthy essay on heat-created toxins in cooked foods.
Write an essay on the negative effects of non-palaeo foods.
Include a couple of articles on addictiveness of junk foods.
Any further ideas re future possible essays much appreciated.
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Does wikipedia allow one to copy and paste whole wikipedia articles onto one's own website? I would like to copy and paste the hygiene hypothesis wikipedia page on to rawpaleodiet.com, you see.
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I don't know how legit it is, but you can probably just copy the html code (or just the parts you want to reference) and paste it directly into your own html document. It might not update with the site, but it seems to contain all the hyperlinks and formatting of the original. Maybe you could do this partially and have a link to the entire document?
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Well I use wordpress I think, normally. Well, I'll do those articles over the next month until they are perfect and then we'll see.
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I have just found out about a new law passed around Easter by the Health and Safety retards in Austria:- all children aged under 16 will now have to wear ski-helmets while skiing. I previously pointed to an article showing that people with such helmets inevitably go c. 10 percent faster as they foolishly think that not only are they somehow immune to accidents but that they also very wrongly think that they are less dangerous to other passersby.
What worries me is that the Health and Safety retards will undoubtedly soon force ALL adult skiers to wear ski-helmets too, thus efficiently ruining my skiing.
At any rate, this health and safety b*llsh*t is deeply worrying. So far, it hasn't affected me much. But, judging from the retards at the FDA who try to shut down raw-dairy farms, it won't be long before laws get passed forcing all raw meats to be irradiated before sale and so on.
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OK, I have decided to store relevant wikipedia pages on heat-created toxins, raw foodism and similiar. I cannot stand the constant editing wars, the sniping etc. Rawpaleodiet.com needs to eventually have this info added so as to confirm that cooking is harmful etc. I will naturally edit those pages to remove stuff which is not relevant to us, plus add far more data to support raw diets.
Wikipedia is actually very good at times, in that people often insert some very interesting pieces of data on webpages(things I would never have found in time via simple googling). The trouble is the lack of permanence of the data as it is constantly being changed by people with agendas of some sort.
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I just received a PM via rawpaleoforum from one of those notorious Nigerian fraudsters, giving a story re mythical millions of dollars locked up in a foreign bank-account and claiming they need my help. I hope no one else here who got such a PM was fooled by this nonsense. Such fraudsters should be strung up.
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I just got one too! Mine is from Miss Godgive Jabie, Abidjan, Ivory Coast. God give me money! ROLF!
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I have noticed a recent tendency towards RZC-bashing on this forum. I am somewhat amused by this as , in the 1st year or two of the forum, there was a contrasting great deal of anti-carb-bashing from RZCers, with carbs being called "evil" and certain other people promoting some plants in the diet being severely attacked . Ah well, perhaps I may have to eventually post a cautionary thread in the RZC forum, similiar to what GS did in the Raw Omnivore forum. The main thing is that neither side should ever "win", as such, so that we have a number of alternative options available to every newbie.
There also seems a bit of heavy Instincto bashing, which puzzles me. I mean, Instincto has some differences, and I didn't approve of the various past mentions against raw meats, or the heavy focus on sweet fruits by some Instinctos - but, all in all, Instincto forbids the exact same foods a rawpalaeodiet does, and I have to admit that my own personal dietary experience does seem to indicate that there is at least something to the notion of instincts. Well, as long as it generates discussion, I suppose...
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...and I have to admit that my own personal dietary experience does seem to indicate that there is at least something to the notion of instincts. Well, as long as it generates discussion, I suppose...
...at LEAST something? I'd give it way more credit than that, its very important to develop good eating instincts, without it you end up having way more people in despair about not knowing what to eat and trying everything without any positive results.
Who cares if you eat RPD but you don't know if you want to eat lean meat, fat, fruits or veggies? You'll still feel screwed up then I can guarantee.
Most people that do well eat pretty much what they want (in RPD realm) when they want.
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I have noticed a recent tendency towards RZC-bashing on this forum.
I know, that's me ;)
I have been only trying to enlighten a little bit about drawbacks of ZC.
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I have just found out about a new law passed around Easter by the Health and Safety retards in Austria:- all children aged under 16 will now have to wear ski-helmets while skiing. I previously pointed to an article showing that people with such helmets inevitably go c. 10 percent faster as they foolishly think that not only are they somehow immune to accidents but that they also very wrongly think that they are less dangerous to other passersby.
What worries me is that the Health and Safety retards will undoubtedly soon force ALL adult skiers to wear ski-helmets too, thus efficiently ruining my skiing.
At any rate, this health and safety b*llsh*t is deeply worrying. So far, it hasn't affected me much. But, judging from the retards at the FDA who try to shut down raw-dairy farms, it won't be long before laws get passed forcing all raw meats to be irradiated before sale and so on.
Ha I hate it too! The more padding and protection we are wearing the less careful we are. I never wear a helmet when biking either, and I am always paying way more attention on the bike then any other time. Here there is a law that kids (I think under 12) have to wear helmets on bike but not adults thank god!
However I will always wear a helmet on motorbike (law or not), because one slip at high speed and you are F.U.C.K.ed...I saw how my friend got scraped up after slipping on a big turn on a rainy night...thank god for his helmet.
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Ha I hate it too! The more padding and protection we are wearing the less careful we are. I never wear a helmet when biking either, and I am always paying way more attention on the bike then any other time. Here there is a law that kids (I think under 12) have to wear helmets on bike but not adults thank god!
However I will always wear a helmet on motorbike (law or not), because one slip at high speed and you are F.U.C.K.ed...I saw how my friend got scraped up after slipping on a big turn on a rainy night...thank god for his helmet.
I once read about a study which showed that car-drivers stayed closer to those bicycle-riders who wore helmets as they thought they could get away with this more; but , of course, this habit actually caused more accidents, not less! So, safer not to wear a helmet if riding a bicycle. Motorcycle riders are different, of course. I have had one very unnerving experience with a motorcycle-rider. Even though I was given a helmet and clenched the side-bars like glue, I very nearly got thrown off due to the excess speed. They seem to be less concerned re speed than car-drivers.
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I remember reading something about that Tyler, and it said in the same article that if you wear a wig to look like a woman you're even safer. Was it you who posted that here?
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I remember reading something about that Tyler, and it said in the same article that if you wear a wig to look like a woman you're even safer. Was it you who posted that here?
Probably, though I don't recall that bit re the wig.
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However I will always wear a helmet on motorbike (law or not), because one slip at high speed and you are F.U.C.K.ed...
The same is true for a bike. One time, a relative of mine fell off a bike while going fast, and the helmet cracked in half. It was a pretty strong helmet. If he had no helmet and that impact all went into his skull, he probably would have suffered serious brain damage.
Also, a neighbour of mine is a very serious biker. He has one of those sports bikes with super-thin tires, clothing to minimize air resistance, etc, and he goes really fast. One time, a tire exploded while he was biking, and he ended up in the hospital with broken ribs. If he didn't have a helmet, he probably would have suffered brain damage from the impact to his head.
If you're going slow, say ~20km/h, it's fine to go without a helmet, but at high speeds (say ~30km/h or faster), you're playing with fire.
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I just had a great experience in a local gym. The pool was ozone-treated so I was spared the usual horror of having my eyes go completely bloodshot due to chlorine vapours. I also tried an infra-red cabin as an alternative to the gym, though I didn't notice all that much difference to the sauna.
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I bought an infared sauna when I was trying to detox from heavy metals, I was so deficient at the time that I think I sweated out as much nutrients as I did toxins, although I still use it to warm up after a long day of working in the cold, overall it was a good investment.
I hook up pools with electric for a living and for the past 3 years there has been a move to these new salt systems that are far safer than the old method of poisoning the water
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Why is it an infra-red sauna? Does that concentrate more of the energy within by stopping energy leaving as light before it can become infra-red?
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Its been eons since I studied the science behind infrared detoxification, there was a radio guru named Robert Scott bell who would proclaim it as being a safe way to rid the body of toxins, the heat is suppose to build up just under the surface of the body which stimulates the sweat glands into Acton much more safely than just a hot air sauna, it will trigger extreme sweat without causing the overall body temperature to rise above safe levels.
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The more padding and protection we are wearing the less careful we are. I never wear a helmet when biking either, and I am always paying way more attention on the bike then any other time.
That's utterly preposterous.
You can be careful but the others no. Besides no one is faultless.
Without a helmet I AM a ticking BOMB on a bike. That's obvious and 100% proven.
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That's utterly preposterous.
You can be careful but the others no. Besides no one is faultless.
Without a helmet I AM a ticking BOMB on a bike. That's obvious and 100% proven.
Sorry, but statistics show that an increase in wearing helmets has caused more accidents, not fewer:-
http://bicycleuniverse.info/eqp/helmets-nyt.html
"Specialists in risk analysis argue that something else is in play. They believe that the increased use of bike helmets may have had an unintended consequence: Riders may feel an inflated sense of security and take more risks."
"Even cyclists who discount the daredevil effect admit that they may ride faster on more dangerous streets when they are wearing their helmets."
Plus, this article shows that car-drivers take less care around helmeted cyclists as they falsely assume that the helmeted cyclists are better protected against possible injury:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/5334208.stm
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Sorry, but statistics whow that an increase in wearing helmets has caused more accidents, not fewer:-
Sorry, Tyler, but it's ONLY the CORRELATION and it definitely doesn't mean the causation.
Plus, this article shows that car-drivers take less care around helmeted cyclists as they falsely assume that the helmeted cyclists are better protected against possible injury:-
I'm a car driver and as a matter of fact I care probably more about helmeted, visible and well-equipped cyclists than about some "vagabounds".
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Sorry, Tyler, but it's ONLY the CORRELATION and it definitely doesn't mean the causation. I'm a car driver and as a matter of fact I care probably more about helmeted, visible and well-equipped cyclists than about some "vagabounds".
A clear case of self-denial.
I have had personal experience with helmeted skiers, and have been acutely aware of how unsafe they are, and how much more willing they are to take foolish risks. The trouble with ski-helmets is that they block peripheral vision, and the thick ski-helmets reduce the effectiveness of one's hearing, thus causing more injuries.
Bicycle helmets, by the way, are notoriously bad at preventing injuries, according to reports:-
http://bicyclesafe.com/helmets.html
unlike ski-helmets, bicycyle helmets are far too hard inside etc.
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I have had personal experience with helmeted skiers, and have been acutely aware of how unsafe they are, and how much more willing they are to take foolish risks.
On the other hand there are plethora of unhelmed ones who ski dangerously.
The trouble with ski-helmets is that they block peripheral vision, and the thick ski-helmets reduce the effectiveness of one's hearing, thus causing more injuries.
If so it's probably due to some bad helmets. The good ones are not reducing anything.
Bicycle helmets, by the way, are notoriously bad at preventing injuries, according to reports:-
That's what I've said. It's a CORRELATION -
The main problem with helmets is not with the helmets themselves, it's with the attitude towards them, the idea that they're the first and last word in bike safety.
So you can wear a helmet and have got a right and safe attitude towards it. It's very simple.
unlike ski-helmets, bicycyle helmets are far too hard inside etc.
I've got a Giro helmet and it's very comfortable.
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On the other hand there are plethora of unhelmed ones who ski dangerously.
Far fewer though in number than the dangerous, helmeted ones.
If so it's probably due to some bad helmets. The good ones are not reducing anything.
No good ones - all ski-helmets are harmful. That's what I've said. It's a CORRELATION -
The main problem with helmets is not with the helmets themselves, it's with the attitude towards them, the idea that they're the first and last word in bike safety.
So you can wear a helmet and have got a right and safe attitude towards it. It's very simple.
The whole point is that wearing a helmet makes you far more likely to change your attitude so that you are far more likely to take more unnecessary risks. I've got a Giro helmet and it's very comfortable.
Exception, not the rule.
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Ok, so don't wear it.
I do wear it and nobody will change my mind.
Period. :)
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The new standards of helmets in Australia are to be made much softer. Helmets are very much comfortable and seem to get more comfortable every year.
It seems you weren't anticipating other skiers in the area so got hit, it was partly your fault. Don't put yourself in that position, I'm always anticipating others moves or watching body language to pick out less coordinated skiers/drivers/cyclists then stay away.
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Ok, so wear a helmet and make sure you stay responsible. Problem solved.
There have been two occurrences where I'd be 100% dead if I hadn't been
wearing a helmet. Wear helmets. Bitches love helmets.
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Most the adults riding in Toronto do not wear a helmet and are fine, its less common to see someone biking with a helmet then without, just be attentive have lights on your bike, and wear something bright and visible especially in the dark, and you will be ok.
Yes there is always a chance you'll break your head, my dad and I have never worn helmets and bike all our lives, I guess its a family tradition.
Personally the helmet makes me feel uncomfortable and if I am uncomfortable I don't bike as well...I'd rather be more careful and take side-roads and park roads then wear a sweaty nasty helmet on a summer day, its just not enjoyable.
There is also people that died on a bike even with a helmet and there are people that got hit by a car just crossing the street, what are they gonna do next, make us wear helmets to go run outside?
Its one thing if you choose to wear a helmet, if it makes you feel safer then great, but another thing if they MAKE you wear one - grrr, especially on something like a bicycle. If I see a road I don't feel is safe I just don't bike on it or I move to the sidewalk, so yeah, I try to be more careful because I am not wearing protection, and it does actually result in me biking more cautiously, its how I am used to doing it.
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The new standards of helmets in Australia are to be made much softer. Helmets are very much comfortable and seem to get more comfortable every year.
Just as well. I always hated the old hard helmets I've seen bikers wear.
It seems you weren't anticipating other skiers in the area so got hit, it was partly your fault. Don't put yourself in that position, I'm always anticipating others moves or watching body language to pick out less coordinated skiers/drivers/cyclists then stay away.
I am actually a good skier. I will admit that , in hindsight, I had been given some really horrible ski-boots in the hire-shop so that I had been unable to close the 2 upper "schnallen" on one of the ski-boots, so that might have slowed me down a crucial fraction of a second. But it is true that helmeted skiers go faster and take more risks. The other problem is, of course, beginners who go on pistes which are too difficult for them - they take so long to go slowly sideways across the piste that they get in the way of more experienced skiers who just ski straight down.
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There is also people that died on a bike even with a helmet and there are people that got hit by a car just crossing the street, what are they gonna do next, make us wear helmets to go run outside?
The helmet doens't make you 100% safe; but it makes you safer, esp. me with a weaker scull with a cranial implant (after the severe accident 5 years ago).
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Well, I have been eating a lot of "vanillekipferl" and "mohnkugeln"(aka "rum-balls) throughout Christmas and New Year, and feeling "hung-over" afterwards. Other times of the year, I avoid these "foods". The trouble is that there is no "rawpalaeo" community in the UK, like there is in the USA, so Christmas always involves a SAD diet to some extent.
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Well, I'm back on the waggon re buying raw wild stagmeat and raw wild boar as my usual staple. But, for this week's shop, I decided to buy some cold-smoked sausages as well for my meat. I have never had cold-smoked stuff before(except possibly some cold-smoked farmed salmon many years ago, though not sure) so I am curious to see if this has a negligible effect on me. Unless I have made an error of assumption, I presume "cold-smoked" means raw/not heated past 40 degrees Celsius, and just has a few nasty extra chemicals from the smoke(like nitrates which are hardly beneficial, to put it mildly, but still). The idea is that I could buy such fare for going hiking up the Alps next summer.I suppose I could make my own jerky by building my own dehydrator viz Lex's useful instructions, but I am not a fan of DIY stuff and would probably botch it. I'll see nearer the time, though.
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I botched it and it still did the job. I was just worried I would burn the house down with it.
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I botched it and it still did the job. I was just worried I would burn the house down with it.
The thing is, I just left some candles lit up on New Year's Eve for a few minutes, and one of them ended up lighting the presumably very flammable artificial arrangement around it, and I duly found roaring flames going feet-high into the air. Well, I can always try doing it in a hut in summer since I have a garden, then.
The experiment with the cold-smoked sausages went OK. They were surprisingly free of preservatives, with no E- numbers and the like.
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Well, now that I'm abroad, I've resorted to things like raw wild stagmeat/wild boar meat in lieu of raw grassfed/organic meats, as "grassfed" means nothing yet over here(although meats are less intensively farmed as in the US). My problem now is that my cheapest source of raw wild stagmeat has suddenly dried up(hopefully only temporarily). I can still get raw wild stagmeat but only at twice the price of before; admittedly, the latter source seems to be of an even higher quality as this new raw stagmeat is darker and redder in colour and tastes way better. The real problem I face is later, when the hunting season ends(presumably around March/April) when I will have to resort to standard, grainfed beef and supplement with raw organic/free-range eggs plus the few really cheap, raw wildcaught fish like mackerel etc. available here.
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While I usually stick to the raw diet, there is the occasional exception. I had some alcohol(schnaps) yesterday. Not the wisest option as I overdid it. Still, if I do drink alcohol , I usually make sure it is a clear liquor as it's notorious that the congeners in the alcohol, which make the hangovers worse, are found in much higher amounts in coloured alcoholic drinks.
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An acquaintance just provided me with links to some dubious new-agey practice called variously "quantum entrainment" or "matrix energetics" or some such - not even sure what that is, but know that it will cost me a lot of money to find out! I used to try these dubious new-age approaches all the time in my pre rawpalaeo phases, and they were (in 99 percent of cases) an expensive waste of time. What irritates me is that the ultimate solution that actually worked, a rawpalaeodiet, was dirt-cheap and simple in its instructions, by contrast - yet it took me years to find out about it.
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When I first started going rawpalaeo, I would be very squeamish, only eating parts of a raw tongue and avoiding the stringy part, and so on. I duly went on to eat the whole raw tongue. I still balk at eating the whole of a sweetbread, but am now eating kiwis whole instead of peeling them. I am wondering, though if this is a bad idea as supposedly some people claim that the skin of a fruit is always infested with pesticides.
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I found it really easy to peel kiwis when they were properly ripe, and I didn't enjoy eating them unless they were very soft anyway. I'm going to try and get hold of spleen and pancreas soon, is that what you mean by sweetbread?
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I found it really easy to peel kiwis when they were properly ripe, and I didn't enjoy eating them unless they were very soft anyway. I'm going to try and get hold of spleen and pancreas soon, is that what you mean by sweetbread?
i thought it meant thymus or pancreas.
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i thought it meant thymus or pancreas.
Yeah you're right.
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I have come to the reluctant conclusion that I do not do well on raw sardines. I just had some major, painful flatulence-related issues after eating such. It could not have been the tomatoes or raw(unsoaked) walnuts I ate some 10 minutes before, I don't think, as I have never had such issues with those 2 foods even if mixed with other foods. I also vaguely recall some past minor issues with raw sardines, ages ago(they don't taste that great anyway so I hardly ever eat them, these days). I have no idea why raw sardines should cause problems for me. I mean I do absolutely fine on other fish like raw swordfish or raw kingfish etc.
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Just had to buy some raw pork. It is mostly grainfed and is incredibly difficult to cut through with a meat-knife, unlike the raw wild game I've been eating so far. Hope I will find a decent source of raw wild game tomorrow.
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Just had to buy some raw pork. It is mostly grainfed and is incredibly difficult to cut through with a meat-knife, unlike the raw wild game I've been eating so far. Hope I will find a decent source of raw wild game tomorrow.
You don't HAVE to buy grainfed pork! A fast would be better. -d
If I remember correctly you lived in London, some years ago. Are you still living there? (or did you move to Austria? (where your last mail came from))
Löwenherz
BTW: I still have round about a ton of truely wild game meat from the Eifel in the freezer. The funny thing is: It cost me even less than supermarket pork meat...
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You don't HAVE to buy grainfed pork! A fast would be better. -d
If I remember correctly you lived in London, some years ago. Are you still living there? (or did you move to Austria? (where your last mail came from))
Löwenherz
BTW: I still have round about a ton of truely wild game meat from the Eifel in the freezer. The funny thing is: It cost me even less than supermarket pork meat...
I'm in Austria right now.
As for the raw wild game, it can often be cheaper than supermarket meat - depends on the seller, though.
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I'm in Austria right now.
Oh, dann sprichst Du sicherlich bereits ein ausgezeichnetes Deutsch, nicht wahr!?
I have heard that wild game meat is easy to get nearly everywhere in Austria. What do you think about fat from wild animals? My only reliable source so far is wild boar. But sometimes the fat is too soft and the taste is disgusting. In such cases I guess that the animal was gormandizing too long on corn fields.
Other animals like deer etc. are usually super lean and no source for fat. That's the main reason to me to buy grass fed meat from domesticated animals. Any ideas beside sanglier?
I want to eat Aurochs!
Löwenherz
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I have heard that wild game meat is easy to get nearly everywhere in Austria. What do you think about fat from wild animals? My only reliable source so far is wild boar. But sometimes the fat is too soft and the taste is disgusting. In such cases I guess that the animal was gormandizing too long on corn fields.
Other animals like deer etc. are usually super lean and no source for fat. That's the main reason to me to buy grass fed meat from domesticated animals. Any ideas beside sanglier?
The only meat from which you seem to like the fat is that which has no fat. I think something else is the matter here other than the feed.
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I find the fat on wild game here is fine. I usually eat a few carbs as well each day, so the fat is not an issue for me.
As for german, I can understand much of it, and speak like a 10-year old re vocabulary but don't expect me to chat all the time in german, it's just too much.
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Just had to buy some raw pork. It is mostly grainfed and is incredibly difficult to cut through with a meat-knife, unlike the raw wild game I've been eating so far. Hope I will find a decent source of raw wild game tomorrow.
It would be a stroke of luck if pigs were only grain fed! But they are also fed cooked leftovers and all the worst junk you can find on this planet. I would never eat a gram of raw commercial pork and I don't even dare giving it to my cat. ;)
Cheers
François
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The only meat from which you seem to like the fat is that which has no fat. I think something else is the matter here other than the feed.
OH, that sounds very philosophical! If something else here is the matter, what could it be, miles?
Usually fat from wild boar tastes excellent. Sometimes not. And my idea is to get fats from other WILD animals. Perhaps beaver, BEAR, WAALRUS, WHAALEESS!!??
What are you favourites?
Löwenherz
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It would be a stroke of luck if pigs were only grain fed! But they are also fed cooked leftovers and all the worst junk you can find on this planet. I would never eat a gram of raw commercial pork and I don't even dare giving it to my cat. ;)
Cheers
François
Oh yes! Especially some wonderful pellets made of industrial waste from so called biofuel production with some nice dioxin goût! -d
Bon appétit!
Löwenherz
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I recently had some chocolate due to meeting with some relatives and being offered it. I haven't had chocolate since going in for RVAF diets 9 years ago, so was somewhat disgusted to find that chocolate on a RVAF diet seems to have a nasty laxative effect on me. I went out for an hour, and had to run home to the toilet, with only seconds to spare. Not a pleasant experience. I suppose my body now views chocolate as a deadly poison, so gets rid of it fast, as I didn't have this problem with chocolate in pre-RPD days.
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I recently had some chocolate due to meeting with some relatives and being offered it. I haven't had chocolate since going in for RVAF diets 9 years ago, so was somewhat disgusted to find that chocolate on a RVAF diet seems to have a nasty laxative effect on me. I went out for an hour, and had to run home to the toilet, with only seconds to spare. Not a pleasant experience. I suppose my body now views chocolate as a deadly poison, so gets rid of it fast, as I didn't have this problem with chocolate in pre-RPD days.
What chocolate was that?
Good high quality chocolate with tea always cheers me up.
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What chocolate was that?
Good high quality chocolate with tea always cheers me up.
Can't remember as I didn't see the wrapping. It was just standard black chococolate, no extras like nuts/milk or whatever with it.
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Can't remember as I didn't see the wrapping. It was just standard black chococolate, no extras like nuts/milk or whatever with it.
It was probably loaded with chemicals and sugar :D
Try pure raw chocolate with some green tea :D
Or some Walnuts with raw honey and tea yummy lol :D
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I find the fat on wild game here is fine. I usually eat a few carbs as well each day, so the fat is not an issue for me.
Do you eat any plant fats nowadays?
Löwenherz
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Do you eat any plant fats nowadays?
Löwenherz
Yes, avocadoes. Maybe the occasional raw olive oil with a salad.
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having irritating internet issues. will be back online in either days or weeks. do not pm or whatever.
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Well I'm back online, faster than I expected.
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I have just been looking at Don Matesz's Primal Wisdom site, as he seems to have sent a concealed ad for his site on here recently. It is quite interesting actually:-
http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/02/paleo-life-expectancy.html
He does say some foolish things such as claiming that cooked supermarket meat is "good". His attempt to debunk Raw Veganism claims is also a bit lame, but it's interesting as most of the only vaguely decent pro-cooking arguments are made by the cooked-palaeos as they view raw veganism to be their polar opposite - so looking at their sites helps me to write up more decent debunking essays on why anti-raw claims are faulty etc.
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In my very gradual attempt to write a series of good super-essays on the negative effects of cooking, I came across some interesting studies showing that mice had extended lifespans when they were exposed to lower amounts of heat-created toxins(AGEs) in their foods. This makes sense as we already know that AGEs contribute to age-related decline in humans re athritis etc., but up till now, I had foolishly accepted the notion that lifespan probably wasn't affected by diet since we had no 120-year-old+ human examples yet as RVAF diets are so very new in appearance. Shows one should never take any of the claims of opponents for granted.
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Some people say that supermarket meat is better cooked than raw, because the bad bacteria are killed.
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Some people say that supermarket meat is better cooked than raw, because the bad bacteria are killed.
Not a good claim. I have even heard of some RVAFers who claimed they improved their health on raw, grainfed meats simply because they weren't taking in the usual daily load of heat-created toxins via cooking. Granted, raw meat fed on grains contains some AGEs due to the unhealthy diet, but it seems to have much less of an effect than when it is cooked.
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Some people say that supermarket meat is better cooked than raw, because the bad bacteria are killed.
This could be a wise decision. I will never touch any supermarket meat any more. I got seriously ill from it in the past. But if I had to eat such meat again I would cook it. The bad bacteria in meat from sick animals can be much more dangerous than some toxins from cooking.
Löwenherz
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I just had a lunch with some relatives over the last weekend. I had butterfish ceviche while they ate Viennese cakes and cooked pork in cheese sauce. I tried to mention my own rawpalaeodiet, as several of the older relatives seem to be having trouble with type 2 diabetes and the like, and I like discussing it once in a while. 1 of them then enthusiastically told me of her interest in the Breatharian Diet - I have to admit I was a bit stunned by this, but she tends to flit from one idea to the next, so it is unlikely to be aserious interest. An in-law assured me that cooked food was essential and that one only needed "mind over matter", not diet, in order to be healthy - well, partially true, but without a healthy raw diet, a positive mindset will only work a little bit as regards health. I pointed out PP's past point about length of time not remotely proving that adaptation has occurred(re giant pandas example), and so on.Not sure any of them will take my advice, but I did slip in some details about Intermittent Fasting and ways to reduce the creation of heat-created toxins when one is cooking, and maybe they will respond to that. I made sure not to preach/convert, just give them some options, nothing more.
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I am now doing "high-meat" currently, and am, unusually, using raw wild game(raw wild boar) instead of raw, grassfed meats as a base. I have also, after being told by fools that raw wild game was too scarce in this area, found a source of cheapish raw wild moufflon which I will taste for the very first time after I go food-shopping on the weekend.
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I am currently hoping to get rid of some "cooking salt/preservatives" used in my raw wild game, when I order. Hope it works.
Want to say something re the notion of "mind-over-matter"- that only works for hypochondriacs; for those others who have multiple-issues due to innumerable health-problems, such advice is absolutely meaningless.
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Well, the moufflon turned out to be way too expensive. The trouble is that, over here, they appreciate raw wild game, so they have 7 different prices for 7 different kinds of raw wild steak, such as "fillet", "rump" etc., so there was a misunderstanding. I will have to pre-order so as to ensure I get only the cheapest cuts as I don't care about the negligible difference in taste between raw fillet steak and raw stewing steak etc.
At any rate, I have gotten rid of the cooking salt-impregnated raw meats. And I now find I can get hold of raw wild hare blood on its own(by the pint?).
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I will have to pre-order so as to ensure I get only the cheapest cuts as I don't care about the negligible difference in taste between raw fillet steak and raw stewing steak etc.
At any rate, I have gotten rid of the cooking salt-impregnated raw meats. And I now find I can get hold of raw wild hare blood on its own(by the pint?).
Do you drink it right away? If not, how long does it take to change? Is there a stage you don't consume it anymore? Is fermented wild hare blood good to consume in some capacity in your experience or to your knowledge?
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Do you drink it right away? If not, how long does it take to change? Is there a stage you don't consume it anymore? Is fermented wild hare blood good to consume in some capacity in your experience or to your knowledge?
Oh, I just usually drink my raw wild hare blood as soon as I buy a carcass, so it's very fresh. Never tried it fermented. Besides, I love the fresh taste.
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Well, I have just had a few days getting a sore throat and runny nose. I got infected from a SAD-eating acquaintance. Goes to show that AV's notions re disease are bogus - admittedly, though, I have only had 2 such episodes, 1 flu and 1 sore throat, in the last 7 years or so. I had far more such episodes pre-rawpalaeodiet.
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Interesting, so that does show that regardless of how healthy the diet, and even if one's susceptibility to infection is reduced as a result, one can still get infections.
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Well, I have just had a few days getting a sore throat and runny nose. I got infected from a SAD-eating acquaintance. Goes to show that AV's notions re disease are bogus - admittedly, though, I have only had 2 such episodes, 1 flu and 1 sore throat, in the last 7 years or so. I had far more such episodes pre-rawpalaeodiet.
I have yet to experience this in 3 short years of raw paleo diet.
I have gotten colds from polluted air.
Thanks for the report!
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one can still get infections.
Yeah and I consider them as something good.
Infectious diseases are a huge weapon againsts all sorts of real diseases such as cancer.
I've got ones from time to time and go through them in natural way.
People who do not get any infections are more likely to die from some serious lethal disease.
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Yeah and I consider them as something good.
Infectious diseases are a huge weapon againsts all sorts of real diseases such as cancer.
I've got ones from time to time and go through them in natural way.
People who do not get any infections are more likely to die from some serious lethal disease.
Totally agree. We don't get infections from wounds but we can get infectious diseases. They are beneficial since their function is to eliminate toxins and they remain mild and bearable under a raw paleo nutrition.
I have gotten colds from polluted air.
I have gotten a few very strong ones in the tropics when I ate cooked food. It was not due to air pollution nor to cold weather.
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One of the many things that keeps me on a raw, palaeolithic diet most of the time is that sometimes after I eat some cooked food, my resulting stools afterwards will no longer be relatively solid - not a pleasant experience.
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Keep those stools solid! thanks for sharing
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-[ -[
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Well, I have just had a few days getting a sore throat and runny nose. I got infected from a SAD-eating acquaintance. Goes to show that AV's notions re disease are bogus - admittedly, though, I have only had 2 such episodes, 1 flu and 1 sore throat, in the last 7 years or so. I had far more such episodes pre-rawpalaeodiet.
I don't think so. I haven't got sick for years. And I'm constantly around sick people.. I once shared a car ride with a person that had the swine flu and I didn't catch it.
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Yeah and I consider them as something good.
Infectious diseases are a huge weapon againsts all sorts of real diseases such as cancer.
I see, and if you die from the infection does that mean it cured you of life? ;)
I don't think so. I haven't got sick for years. ....
You don't think so what--do you think Tyler is wrong about his having gotten an infection?
Keep those stools solid! thanks for sharing
:o ;D
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I see, and if you die from the infection does that mean it cured you of life? ;)
You don't think so what--do you think Tyler is wrong about his having gotten an infection?
I don't think AV's notions re disease are bogus.
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That wasn't the question. Are you saying that you don't think that Tyler got an infection? Since AV acknowledges that Primal dieters get infections (and thinks they are good things), then he wouldn't necessarily disagree with Tyler on that, would he?
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I see, and if you die from the infection does that mean it cured you of life? ;)
:o ;D
You can die from an infectious disease if you eat neolithic and processed, cooked food. We have more than 40 years of experience with hundred of people showing that we can get infectious diseases when under instinctive-raw-paleo-nutrition, but it never evolves in a dangerous way. I had a few in my 24 years experience but it was so mild and well controlled that I never had to take any drugs nor stop working.
Well, I see that I already said that:
The bacterial and viral “infections” remain perfectly controlled, benign and safe under raw paleo instinctive nutrition. They runaway and become dangerous or even fatal only if the intake of cooked and Neolithic food continues. This is a fact that has been verified thousands of times and that I’ve been able to verify myself a lot of times during a 24 years period.
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You can die from an infectious disease if you eat neolithic and processed, cooked food. We have more than 40 years of experience with hundred of people showing that we can get infectious diseases when under instinctive-raw-paleo-nutrition, but it never evolves in a dangerous way. I had a few in my 24 years experience but it was so mild and well controlled that I never had to take any drugs nor stop working.
So then you are saying that someone who eats raw Paleo or Instincto can never get seriously ill or die from an infection at any age, yes? This would presumably be true for all species of animals in the wild too, not just humans, yes? How thoroughly raw Paleo or Instincto does one need to be for this to be the case, 80%, 90%, 99%, 100%?
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You can 'never' be 100% raw paleo instincto though anyway since there's always pollution.
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So then you are saying that someone who eats raw Paleo or Instincto can never get seriously ill or die from an infection at any age, yes? This would presumably be true for all species of animals in the wild too, not just humans, yes? How thoroughly raw Paleo or Instincto does one need to be for this to be the case, 80%, 90%, 99%, 100%?
That’s what our experience shows but we don’t have any with very old people, say more than 100 years old. We can infer that no one having a proper nutrition should die from an infection, but die from other causes. It seems animals in the wild may die from infection only when there’s an imbalance in their diet due to human environmental interference and/or confinement to a specific area.
Eating 100% raw paleo unprocessed food will do, 99% probably as well. But at least during an infectious disease, it should be 100% raw and instinctive.
You can 'never' be 100% raw paleo instincto though anyway since there's always pollution.
We don’t pretend to avoid pollution. When I say 100% raw paleo, I don’t mean to avoid all plant stuff grown with fertilizers and pesticides.
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I don't buy into the notion that wild animals are somehow immune to disease, given reports re pandemics in the wild. I am sure that they can be affected, but I doubt that they are as easily affected as SAD-eating humans as regards minor things like colds. I mean, prior to going rawpalaeo, I would get colds/flus all the time as my immune-system was destroyed at the time, but only got that 1 flu 4 years into the diet and this 1 cold/sore-throat - well, that is, I also got minor flu-like symptoms every 2-4 months for the first 2-3 years of going rawpalaeo, but these were not full-blown cases of flu(just 1 or 2 of the usual flu symptoms but with the symptoms being much weaker than normal flu) - so I view the latter as just detox as I felt better afterwards than before the episode.
It is always possible, of course, that I might not have got even the 1 cold/sore-throat and 1 flu in those 7 years if I had had regularly practised exercise quite as frequently as FTH presumably has, as exercise boosts the immune-system. But I don't think the tiny amounts of non-rawpalaeo foods I've eaten in recent times can have initiated the cold/sore-throat as a detox, as I would expect that cold to occur within a day of eating such cooked foods, as I get such a detox reaction sometimes after eating cooked food.
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I don't buy into the notion that wild animals are somehow immune to disease, given reports re pandemics in the wild.
Yes, but isn't it when the natural equilibrium has been destroyed?
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Currently, I am eating raw wild (prefrozen)hare blood(no accompanying raw hare flesh) and some raw deer " stewing steak", along with the occasional raw tomato or raw orange. I should make clear that I think that the supposed differences between the very expensive "fillet-steak" and lesser cuts of meat like the very cheap "stewing-steak" are absolutely irrelevant, especially when they are both
raw. Indeed, stewing steak and the like seem to have more raw fat in them than raw fillet steak, suggesting they are more beneficial for human health.
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Yes, but isn't it when the natural equilibrium has been destroyed?
What about their "natural equilibrium" was destroyed and how?
This video says that when white men brought their dog breeds with them to the Arctic, the dogs brought diseases with them that the indigenous huskies did not have immune resistance to and the infections wiped out many of the huskies: http://www.factualtv.com/documentary/Natural-Kingdom-Collection-Dog-of-the-Midnight-Sun
Thousands of years of living with Inuit did not cause such a pandemic among the huskies, but contact with outside breeds of dogs from the modern world rapidly did.
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Human pressure often confine wild animals in area where they become unable to find their normal food or pollute their environment with waste or cooked residues. Else the natural equilibrium is broken because predators are eliminated and a specie proliferates to the point it cannot find enough appropriate food.
I didn’t watch the whole video, it’s too long and time consuming, but either it’s an exception or it’s because the white men brought cooked food along with their dogs and fed them cooked junk. Dogs are found of the shit of other dogs, so the huskies could have got sick from the damaged molecules in cooked junk fed to the white men dogs and found in their excrements.
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Human pressure often confine wild animals in area where they become unable to find their normal food or pollute their environment with waste or cooked residues. Else the natural equilibrium is broken because predators are eliminated and a specie proliferates to the point it cannot find enough appropriate food.
Do you have evidence that indicates that all harmful infections in wild animals are due to habitat impingement or pollution or are you guessing?
I didn’t watch the whole video, it’s too long and time consuming, but either it’s an exception or it’s because the white men brought cooked food along with their dogs and fed them cooked junk.
How do you know this without even watching the video?
Dogs are found of the shit of other dogs, so the huskies could have got sick from the damaged molecules in cooked junk fed to the white men dogs and found in their excrements.
And space aliens could have injected the huskies with poisons. Anything is possible, which is why we look to evidence to help determine what is mere fantasy.
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Well, I have learnt something new today - I absolutely loathe the taste of pure, raw blood which has been left in the fridge for more than 5 days, especially if it has been prefrozen.
I am still working on an essay on heat-created toxins etc./harm done by cooking. Trouble is, I am having problems in getting various articles/testimonials etc. easily visible on rawpaleodiet.com under headlines. May have to get GS's help on this, eventually.
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Do you have evidence that indicates that all harmful infections in wild animals are due to habitat impingement or pollution or are you guessing?
How do you know this without even watching the video?
And space aliens could have injected the huskies with poisons. Anything is possible, which is why we look to evidence to help determine what is mere fantasy.
I don’t have to provide such evidence because I wrote “either it’s an exception or (…)”, meaning that the culprit could be another cause than what they assert. It’s rather to those pretending “that when white men brought their dog breeds with them to the Arctic, the dogs brought diseases with them that the indigenous huskies did not have immune resistance (…)” to prove their assertion and that it was not due for example to the noxious molecules in cooked food the white men likely brought also with them and fed their dogs. The researcher are never aware of the problems induced by cooked and modern food, so they don’t pay attention to this being possibly a cause of disease. They leave their cooked leftover at the reach of the wild animals they observe and if those animals get sick, they conclude that diseases are present even in the most preserved wilderness.
We already talked about the case of Tasmanian devils here and in next posts. (http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/welcoming-commitee/hello-raw-paleo-world!!-party-on!/msg61988/#msg61988)
Perhaps we should move this discussion in a new specific thread.
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I don’t have to provide such evidence because I wrote “either it’s an exception or (…)”, meaning that the culprit could be another cause than what they assert.
Yes, I was just curious if you had evidence or were just sharing a guess. I like guessing myself, but I also like evidence.
It’s rather to those pretending “that when white men brought their dog breeds with them to the Arctic, the dogs brought diseases with them that the indigenous huskies did not have immune resistance (…)” to prove their assertion and that it was not due for example to the noxious molecules in cooked food the white men likely brought also with them and fed their dogs.
Actually, their view is the consensus view, so the scientific community would likely say that it is up to you (or someone) to provide counter evidence to the existing germ theory of infectious disease. Perhaps there could be some truth on both sides, with germs playing a role in infection and disease and diet and lifestyle also playing a role--perhaps a much larger role?
The researcher are never aware of the problems induced by cooked and modern food, so they don’t pay attention to this being possibly a cause of disease.
Yes, I know. One term I use for it is "modern foods syndrome."
They leave their cooked leftover at the reach of the wild animals they observe and if those animals get sick, they conclude that diseases are present even in the most preserved wilderness.
Again, they would ask you for evidence.
We already talked about the case of Tasmanian devils here and in next posts. (http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/welcoming-commitee/hello-raw-paleo-world!!-party-on!/msg61988/#msg61988)
Perhaps we should move this discussion in a new specific thread.
Yes, I already know that civilization can cause diseases in wild animals, but you've apparently gone beyond that, claiming that infection is never the primary cause in so-called "infectious" illnesses like the alleged pandemic of smallpox that allegedly wiped out many Native Americans, yes? Aajonus has been making this claim for years, but I haven't seen anyone in the scientific community take it seriously yet. They're not going to do so just because someone claims it's so. They will require evidence, and, rightly or wrongly, it'll likely take some pretty astounding and overwhelming evidence to cause such a paradigm shift.
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Well, I finally got my raw wild moufflon, which I will taste in about 4 or 5 days time from now. I have always thought that it was a very big mistake for some RVAFers to only eat a limited variety of foods, however grassfed they might be etc. In pre-cooking-palaeo times, HGs would eat a huge variety of raw foods and I have found that emulating them as much as I can re variety makes me healthier(more full of energy etc.) than when I limit my diet to just raw grassfed muscle-meat and a few raw grassfed organs and raw organic fruits, say. Adding in raw seafood or different raw wild game from the usual etc. all helps.
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Just heard some details about a relative of mine. He, as usual, has stomach-trouble(mostly psychological, admittedly), but both his sons and his wife currently have the same issues, and one of his sons has been ill(flu or something) for 10 days. His wife is a frequent smoker, which is why both sons have asthma like their father had, and she has always fed them on a diet consisting mostly of McDonald's meals. While my own issues got started by consuming dairy, whether raw or pasteurised as opposed to consuming junk-food diets, I'm grateful that I was raised on a mostly-cooked semi-weston-price-style diet, as things could have been even worse for me, otherwise.
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I find I often like the enhanced mental clarity/concentration I get on days when I eat only or almost wholly raw meats, especially raw wild game. Trouble is if I go RZC for long enough, my physical performance suffers after a few days, and eventually(after 3 weeks) I start getting really nasty problems like dehydration etc. no matter how much water I drink and so on. I suppose I could do carb-loading where I eat only raw meats for 3 or 4 days and eat rather more raw carbs than usual on the other 3 or 4 days of the week.
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I've taken to wearing a magnet around my wrist since it was no longer being used by someone else. I have no need for such a thing, nor do I actually think it's likely to work, but I figure it might have a positive placebo-like effect on me, over time. Whatever the case, I am sure that wearing a magnet won't harm me.
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I've taken to wearing a magnet around my wrist since it was no longer being used by someone else. I have no need for such a thing, nor do I actually think it's likely to work, but I figure it might have a positive placebo-like effect on me, over time. Whatever the case, I am sure that wearing a magnet won't harm me.
Do you have need for a placebo effect?
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Do you have need for a placebo effect?
I used to be a real fan of self-improvement as I found it worked for me in 3 or 4 different ways. I am now going in for a second drive/effort, and am just curious to see if magnets etc. have a further effect. But, no, I don't really "need" a placebo effect as such.
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I worked in a health food/supplement/herb/etc. store for a while and magnets were quite possibly the worst selling item. They gathered dust.
Since you asked for feedback on what's in the articles at www.rawpaleodiet.com, below are some thoughts. They are just suggestions. I don't want to debate them, so feel free to use them or not. Dealer's choice.
"The Raw Paleolithic Diet & Lifestyle!" (http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/) page:
For me the key feature of raw Paleo is more than "a more historically natural approach," it's a biologically appropriate approach, or at least aims to be as best as can be managed with today's foods. Biological appropriateness was the fundamental element of Boyd Eaton's 1986 hypothesis of Paleolithic nutrition that started the Paleo diet movement (Voegtlin's earlier work was not influential enough to start the movement). Basing it only on what's "historically natural" lends itself too easily to the errors of blind emulation and re-enactment and woo like Natural Hygiene.
Wai Genriuu (actually spelled Genriiu) is not a real name. It is the Internet pseudonym of Thijs Klompmaker. Klompmaker has revealed his real name online (http://www.thijsklompmaker.com/interview.htm) so I would include that with the pseudonym as a lot of people apparently wrongly assume that Wai Genriuu is some mystical Asian female or something.
---*---
"Lex Rooker, USA" page (http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/lex-rooker-usa):
There are spam comments. I would require some sort of verification of comments, such as having the commenter type in the characters of an image of text (a common technique on other blogs) or requiring moderator verification. The latter should be manageable, since the comments are few. You could also advise people with questions to seek answers at the forum rather than in the comments sections of the testimonial articles.
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The "Nutrition" (http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/nutrition/) page:
I would add Denise Minger to the list of raw animal food gurus.
Some of the views at http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/nutrition/ are controversial both within the raw Paleo diet community as well as the broader Paleo diet community. For example, this one:
"Legumes are forbidden as well, due to their high antinutrient-levels – and starchy tubers as well."
Some legume tubers and fruit seeds like jicama, yacon, long yam and wild African groundnut are edible raw and therefore "Paleo" by Ray Audette's definition of attainable and edible with nothing but a sharp stick, and are acceptable by the Instincto definition (though Instincto is not completely "Paleo"), though most of them are not African or Eurasian species. Plus, groundnut legume fruit pod seeds are consumed by African hunter gatherers and some anthropologists believe they were consumed as far back as the Australopithecines. Not a lot of research has been done on Stone Age tubers and legumes, so I would think that some of these foods would at least be in a gray undetermined zone rather than completely decided one way or the other. See also the writings of cooked Paleo/ancestral gurus Don Matesz, Stephan Guyenet, Kurt Harris and Richard Nikoley for arguments and evidence for considering some starchy tubers as "Paleo"/ancestral (they advocate for cooked tubers, but that's not a problem, as some tubers are edible raw). You could add some sort of caveat, like "There is evidence of consumption of certain legumes and tubers (edible raw) in the Stone Age and by current hunter gatherers, so all cannot be completely ruled out from being considered Paleo at this time. The modern forms of legumes and tubers and the processing techniques used tend to be quite different than those of the Stone Age and hunter-gatherers, so caution should be used with these foods and those inedible raw are avoided on the raw Paleo diet."
One confusing aspect of the anthropological research is that the tubers of legumes are consumed by hunter gatherers like the Hadza. So do we classify them as legumes or tubers or legume-tubers?
It looks like there are typo errors here:
"which is misleading.other raf diets"
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This should really have been put in the suggestions box in the relevant thread. That said, I am very grateful for your contributions as you, GS and I seem to be the only 3 really interested in contributing to the raw, palaeolithic diet community in a sizeable way.
Re your points:-
Satya was the one who tried to "reword" much of what I meant to say. I may eventually get round to rephrasing much of the text, to make it more in line with what you mean.
I don't think it's that important who or what Wai Genriuu really is, as Aajonus himself has his own made-up name.
GS is reorganising the site, right now. I will, after that, get rid of any useless comments and only add in helpful ones.
I will add a few more raw gurus like Carol Alt or Denise Minger etc. at some stage.
The issue of legumes is non-palaeo. Sure, some people feel that legumes are OK in certain circumstances, but most find them a waste of time either due to personal experience or due to ideology.
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I don't think it's that important who or what Wai Genriuu really is, as Aajonus himself has his own made-up name.
Yeah, it's not a big deal, but since there is some confusion over it (even at the Wai forum itself, ironically), it might be useful to have clarification of it somewhere on the Internet that you could point to when folks have misunderstandings over it, as has happened at this forum, with Wai being referred to as a "she" and various views being attributed to him that he did not espouse and others that he does espouse being denied, etc. Plus it would fit in with your philosophy of not making gods of gurus to reveal who the real human being behind the Wai persona is. Just a thought.
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I've just had a surprise e-mail from my brother actually asking me about my diet and what sort of choices there are within the diet. Up till now, he has made some vague choices re health(he likes eating lots of sushi, not high-grade sushi like you find in Japanese restaurants, but the kind you find in Yo Sushi chains, not great but not filled with too many preservatives/chemicals - he's also a fan of raw, freshly squeezed fruit-juices). I doubt he is all that interested in my diet, given past comments, but I think he wants to make his own diet a little healthier.
Anyway, 2 of his questions revolve around the notion of doing an allergy-test, and the issue of taking artificial hormones. I'm going to tell him both are largely useless as notions, as I have heard that allergy-tests have failed to detect allergies in some people, like coeliacs due to some of them not having antibodies for various reasons, plus hormones like steroids cause things like reduced testicle size etc. If anyone has heard the contrary, feel free to mention such.
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....Anyway, 2 of his questions revolve around the notion of doing an allergy-test, and the issue of taking artificial hormones. I'm going to tell him both are largely useless as notions, as I have heard that allergy-tests have failed to detect allergies in some people, like coeliacs due to some of them not having antibodies for various reasons, plus hormones like steroids cause things like reduced testicle size etc. If anyone has heard the contrary, feel free to mention such.
I had a comprehensive antibody test done and it was of only minor to moderate utility. The main benefit it provided was that it showed that my immune system generates antibodies to a LOT of foods, so it's probably good for me to mix it up some and not eat the same foods every day over the long term (on the other hand, a strict and detailed rotation diet indicated by the tests didn't provide any noticeable benefits for me, so rotating foods seems to be of only minor benefit for me, if any). As for specific foods, the levels of antibodies only correlated partially to which foods generate negative symptoms for me and which are beneficial (for example, it only showed moderate antibodies to wheat proteins, but that's probably because I hadn't eaten any in years, as wheat has the most negative effects on me of any food), so I think your skepticism is reasonable and I wouldn't treat antibody tests like gospel on each individual food. Other people have also told me that the tests didn't correlate exactly with which foods they fare best on. I do think that they have some general validity though, as my father has far less symptoms than me and his antibody levels correlated well with that--much lower overall than mine. Mine were so high across so many foods that the receptionist called me and told me "You'd better get in here!" LOL
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I've just been walking through a sparsely forested area, sort of open woodland, and have been gorging myself on raw garlic leaves. There were acres upon acres of the stuff.
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I've just been walking through a sparsely forested area, sort of open woodland, and have been gorging myself on raw garlic leaves. There were acres upon acres of the stuff.
Do they spray pesticides in that area?
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Do they spray pesticides in that area?
There are some fields within a few km, but, no, they don't spray pesticides anywhere near the garlic.
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There are some fields within a few km, but, no, they don't spray pesticides anywhere near the garlic.
Awesome and yum, I hope I stumble upon a foresty/woody area to go foraging soon!
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I'm going to try Lex's instructions in June and will make lots of raw horsemeat jerky.
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I've been to an exhibition on the Romans, and it was mentioned that they would routinely put up for sacrifices the animal-organs they valued the most, namely hearts, livers and lungs.
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I'm going to try Lex's instructions in June and will make lots of raw horsemeat jerky.
That should be delicious. I love beef jerky and have tried venison biltongs, so think a horse jerky will be amazing.
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OK, I just got a question from a RVAF diet newbie on another website and am not sure re the answer. He/she has asked whether the raw coconut chunks stored in glass jars, sold in stores, have previously been heat-treated or not. All I know is that some coconut oil manufacturers strenuously claim that they have not used any heat on their product, but I have no idea as to whether coconut chunks are routinely pre-heated. I assume,for now, that all such jarred products have been heated unless they strenuously, officially, deny that it has been heated. Anyone know different? Also, the questioner wanted to know about other jarred products in general, if they were heated or not. Any info appreciated!
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OK, I just got a question from a RVAF diet newbie on another website and am not sure re the answer. He/she has asked whether the raw coconut chunks stored in glass jars, sold in stores, have previously been heat-treated or not. All I know is that some coconut oil manufacturers strenuously claim that they have not used any heat on their product, but I have no idea as to whether coconut chunks are routinely pre-heated. I assume,for now, that all such jarred products have been heated unless they strenuously, officially, deny that it has been heated. Anyone know different? Also, the questioner wanted to know about other jarred products in general, if they were heated or not. Any info appreciated!
I have never seen coconut chunks in glass jars!? Very interesting.
But very often I have seen fresh coconut chunks sold in supermarkets in so called 'read to eat' plastic boxes with transparent foil on top (same as used for pieces of fruit etc.). Such products are usually fresh, unheated, untreated, made by the supermarket staff in the morning.
Löwenherz
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Sorry it was so-called "raw" coconut butter, not coconut chunks.
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Sorry it was so-called "raw" coconut butter, not coconut chunks.
Do you know the brand? I get the big 1 gallon bucket of Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin CO on amazon.
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Do you know the brand? I get the big 1 gallon bucket of Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin CO on amazon.
Artisana.
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Artisana.
Coconut butter is usually made of coconut oil plus finely ground, completely dehydrated mature coconut meat. It's full of fiber and very high in minerals. It tastes much more like coconut than pure coconut oil. Most of all available coconut products are definitely NOT raw.
I know only two producers of allegedly really raw coconut butter:
Artisana in USA and Dr. Goerg in Europe.
Löwenherz
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That artisana coconut butter reaches up to 43C during its production. I emailed them about it a while back.
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Interesting.
Anyway, right now, I am considering a new direction. I was considering using WWOOF for a few months to get experience on running a farm. I have often been aware that it is a bit absurd for me to ask questions about grass-feeding etc. when I can, instead, be 100 percent sure, if I move to the country and raise my own animals to some extent. If WWOOFers could give me some idea, I would be grateful. I like the notion of being mostly or wholly self-sufficient as regards food or anything else.
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Interesting.
Anyway, right now, I am considering a new direction. I was considering using WWOOF for a few months to get experience on running a farm. I have often been aware that it is a bit absurd for me to ask questions about grass-feeding etc. when I can, instead, be 100 percent sure, if I move to the country and raise my own animals to some extent. If WWOOFers could give me some idea, I would be grateful. I like the notion of being mostly or wholly self-sufficient as regards food or anything else.
Send an email to Eric Knight / Yon Yonson. He's been WWOOFing for some time now.
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Interesting.
Anyway, right now, I am considering a new direction. I was considering using WWOOF for a few months to get experience on running a farm. I have often been aware that it is a bit absurd for me to ask questions about grass-feeding etc. when I can, instead, be 100 percent sure, if I move to the country and raise my own animals to some extent. If WWOOFers could give me some idea, I would be grateful. I like the notion of being mostly or wholly self-sufficient as regards food or anything else.
Great!
I myself am visiting farm after farm for months now. Lots of great talks with experienced farmers. I will skip the WWOOFing thing and intend to just start this year (jump into the cold water, so to say). Can't wait to 'produce' good food.
Löwenherz
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Anyway, right now, I am considering a new direction. I was considering using WWOOF for a few months to get experience on running a farm. I have often been aware that it is a bit absurd for me to ask questions about grass-feeding etc. when I can, instead, be 100 percent sure, if I move to the country and raise my own animals to some extent. If WWOOFers could give me some idea, I would be grateful. I like the notion of being mostly or wholly self-sufficient as regards food or anything else.
I decided to do a similar thing and started my apprentice training in biodynamic agriculture three weeks ago. It's a 240 ha mixed farm in East Sussex. I'll blog about it in more detail in few months' time but feel free to email me if you have questions.
I also did a bit of woofing in the south of France for a few months many years ago.
My take is that if you want to start your own farm then interning is waste of time, better to just go cold turkey. Read a few books e.g. Joel Salatin's You Can Farm is good book to start with and trial-and-error yourself.
The biggest drawback I find with woofing and similar schemes is that the farmers are usually more interested in getting cheap labour rather than sharing their experiences/wisdom.
http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com/ - their latest podcast mentions why not to do apprenticeships.
So why am I doing the apprenticeship? Well, a short answer is that I don't want to become a farmer. I just wanted to take some time off and the diploma is useful for my business and also if I wish to do my Masters in agro-ecology in the future.
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Who's that in your avatar?
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Who's that in your avatar?
It's an artist's reconstruction of what Cro-Magnon Man in Europe looked like, presumably based on a real Cro-Magnon skull, like other similiar efforts online. It's from the Encyclopaedia Britannica online:-
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/36968/Artists-reconstruction-of-a-Cro-Magnon-an-early-version-of
It looks a bit better than the usual images of club-wielding thuggish savages one finds in google images.
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Now that I am no longer in the area for now, I heartily recommend that UK rawpalaeodieters visit Marylebone Farmers' Market in London. It's the biggest of the "LFM" assocation markets in London(lfm.org.uk) and has 1 fisherman selling dirt-cheap bags of raw wildcaught mussels(4 pounds a huge bag of c.150-200) and very cheap raw wildcaught oysters at 70P per oyster. I got them often as double-oysters as other customers were squeamish re these. He also sells raw lobster and raw crab when in season. Other sellers include 1 guy who sells almost unlimited raw wild hare carcasses(as long as you always order beforehand the previous week), another sells raw, salt-marsh-fed lamb, while others sell oddities like raw medlars when in season, another sells raw heather honeycomb, and so on. Sure, there are some other bizarre market-stalls offering raw organic, grainfed meats or very expensive, raw seafood, but these can be avoided with a little investigation...
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i love your new avatar! where is that?
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i love your new avatar! where is that?
It's a photo of a lake("lac du basto") in one of the most beautiful regions in the world, the area around the "Vallee des Merveilles". The Vallee des Merveilles is situated in the Mercantour national park some distance from Nice in southern France. It not only has great views all over, but it also has rock-carvings dating back to the Bronze Age, with multi-coloured volcanic rocks lying around. I visit it every few years or so as it's one of the few really wild areas left in Europe.
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OK, I have no idea re my internet access in June. It could be sporadic or even nonexistent. So, no PMs please.
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Have a good holiday
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It's an artist's reconstruction of what Cro-Magnon Man in Europe looked like, presumably based on a real Cro-Magnon skull, like other similiar efforts online. It's from the Encyclopaedia Britannica online:-
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/36968/Artists-reconstruction-of-a-Cro-Magnon-an-early-version-of
It looks a bit better than the usual images of club-wielding thuggish savages one finds in google images.
I have a neighbor that looks exactly like this :) That man is like a rock, short but huge muscles, although now in his fifties he seems to be fattening a little bit from laziness I guess (but still looks like 30 overall :)). His son is my age -- he's not doing any exercise and is eating the standard bad food, yet he's all muscular and you can clearly see even the most hidden tiny muscles on the body. Go figure it. With very little training he used to be at the top in boxing in the country in his category, now he's a cab driver. It's quite sad to see such good genetic potential wasting like that.
Edit: ok not exactly like this, this reconstruction would be more like a 60-70 years old version.
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My attempts in the last month to make "high-meat" by placing it in sealed boxes in the garden were not successful it seems. I only seem to make things work easily in the fridge. Also, when abroad in my garden in Italy, I plan on growing dozens more fruit-trees, over the next few years, so that I can eat more of my excellent home-grown fruits.
In September, I will be buying the equipment needed to produce Lex's beef jerky maker,so that I am fully experienced re jerky making by the time I go for my next summer vacation in the mountains, next year.
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How about wolf style? Just burying the meat. The bacteria in the soil would make it a very high quality high meat i'd say. A jar sealed with cloth to allow air to it instead of a lid might also help. I know you get wild carcasses every now and then so you could also try the inuit style. Stuffing a skin with meat (or small birds like the inuit do) and bury it for a few months.
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The traditional Inuit didn't use sealed boxes. As I understand it, they put the meat in the hide of the animal (I wonder if the hide allows a small amount of oxygen in through the hide?) and tied it with the animal's tendons or something and then buried it either under rocks (just so other animals couldn't get it I think?), or in a grass-lined hole covered with loose dirt. I wish there was more detailed info on this process.
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The traditional Inuit didn't use sealed boxes. As I understand it, they put the meat in the hide of the animal (I wonder if the hide allows a small amount of oxygen in through the hide?) and tied it with the animal's tendons or something and then buried it either under rocks (just so other animals couldn't get it I think?), or in a grass-lined hole covered with loose dirt. I wish there was more detailed info on this process.
There is. In one of ray mears tv shows the inuit clearly show every step of the process to him and the viewer.
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I don't like the idea of insects getting to it, which is why I used plastic boxes. Maybe in a decade or so, I will start getting used to live maggots in my meat but not yet...
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Plastic? WTH ??? Aren't you concerned about botulism? I've never seen maggots on any of the traditional high meat shown in TV shows, so I'm not sure whether that's a real concern or not with traditional methods. It's an interesting question.
The WAPF showed a photo of "Shark stomachs containing shark livers from Tahiti, hanging in the trees to ferment." http://www.westonaprice.org/cod-liver-oil/1602-update-on-cod-liver-oil-manufacture Again the animal itself is used to contain the food, not plastic, metal or other modern material. Glass is the only modern material I know of that seems relatively safe and is used by Aajonus, but even with glass you're supposed to air it out every couple days or so. I don't see maggots or even flies on those shark stomachs, but I don't know why that would be.
Thanks for the tip Hit it Raw. I may have seen that Ray Mears program, but I'm not recalling the details, so I'll search for it again.
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Plastic? I would never way to scared for solvent from the plastic leaching in my food. Underground there are no flies so no maggots either. How about using glass jars with cloth? allows for the necessary breathing without flies getting to it.
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I wish there was more detailed info on this process.
See the BBC series "the human planet" in one of the episodes they show how it's done.
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I've seen videos of the process too. They didn't discuss maggots, so I don't think flies can get at the meat under even the rocks much less the dirt, and I'm guessing it's not an issue with the oil in the shark stomachs because the flies can't get at the oil, but it might be unappealing to people to have flies on the stomachs, though I don't see any in the photo.
We should probably have a sticky thread to put all the high meat videos into--those of the Inuit, Chukchi, Aajonus, etc.
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Well, maybe next time I'll try the glass and cloth idea.
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All the high meat videos I've seen have been in cold lands (Inuit and Chukchi lands) except the oil in shark stomachs in Tahiti, so I wonder if the ground would be cold enough in temperate lands during the summer?
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My friend made high beef and bison out of the fridge in glass with tight lids. It's been going for well over 1 year, and he's too lazy to even air it once a week. So he claims at the most he airs it once a month! ugghh, but he eats it and shares it with other locals and they seem to not by dropping like flies. Apparently when it comes to raw red meats, you can get away murder, pun intended. He even was saying that it had no smell, it was so old. Yet, we were with Aajonus in his living room, he opens the jar again saying it's so fermented it doesn't smell at all, and Aajonus is like "Wheeeww! That smells! I can smell it from across the room!" lol ;D
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That's pretty much been my experience as well. After close to a year the smell was greatly lessened and the taste was not nearly as strong. This reportedly happens with stinky cheese too. I'm pretty lazy too, so I probably only air my high meat out 2 or 3 times a month, but I'm not recommending that to anyone, as there's so little known about high meat. Mine is well over 2 years old now and nearly all liquid. Those little bacteria have been digesting it thoroughly. I don't even bother to take it outside any more when I air it out. My high meat never stunk up the house for 3 days like Aajonus reports, but maybe Aajonus has a very sensitive nose or maybe I just enjoy the smell now?
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I am considering the eventual idea of selling some processed foods at various markets at weekends, things like cakes or pastry from foreign lands. I suppose it sounds a bit hypocritical, given my diet, but I have no problem with helping people to become less healthy, if that's what they want.
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I am considering the eventual idea of selling some processed foods at various markets at weekends, things like cakes or pastry from foreign lands. I suppose it sounds a bit hypocritical, given my diet, but I have no problem with helping people to become less healthy, if that's what they want.
??? -d
Inger
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??? -d
Inger
Well, I don't see any problem with me having a bit of Schadenfreude towards cooked-foodists, making them unhealthier. Eric Frank Russell, the science fiction writer, once stated, famously, in an SF story, that "everyone has the right to go to hell in their own way". I agree with that notion, especially if it makes me a profit. You see, in the UK, these products are virtually unobtainable, so I might make a lot of cash out of it....
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As we say here, "It's a free country!"
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so I might make a lot of cash out of it....
I would do the same if I were you.
It's very pragmatic - make a lot of cash (the way we do it is not important) and have a decent life
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Well, I don't see any problem with me having a bit of Schadenfreude towards cooked-foodists, making them unhealthier. Eric Frank Russell, the science fiction writer, once stated, famously, in an SF story, that "everyone has the right to go to hell in their own way". I agree with that notion, especially if it makes me a profit. You see, in the UK, these products are virtually unobtainable, so I might make a lot of cash out of it....
I wouldn't blame you if you do that because they eat cooked, neolithic and modern food anyway, so it wouldn't harm them any more than the other stuff they commonly eat.
It's very pragmatic - make a lot of cash (the way we do it is not important) and have a decent life
I disagree; I think it’s important. Cheating or robbing an old woman, selling nuclear power plants to Libya, Syria, Nigeria or to any unstable country, taking bribes to discretely dump nuclear waste in the Indian Ocean, selling grenades and bombs to criminals and terrorists, commercializing pesticides or killing the postman to rob the money he carries are things none of us would do – at least I hope!
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I am considering the eventual idea of selling some processed foods at various markets at weekends, things like cakes or pastry from foreign lands. I suppose it sounds a bit hypocritical, given my diet, but I have no problem with helping people to become less healthy, if that's what they want.
It's business.
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It's business.
And you don't cheat them, they know that what you sell is cooked. It's not like selling some heated food as raw or grain and garbage fed meat as grass fed!
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I disagree; I think it’s important. Cheating or robbing an old woman, selling nuclear power plants to Libya, Syria, Nigeria or to any unstable country, taking bribes to discretely dump nuclear waste in the Indian Ocean, selling grenades and bombs to criminals and terrorists, commercializing pesticides or killing the postman to rob the money he carries are things none of us would do – at least I hope!
Of course, I wouldn't do these kinds of things.
I meant something else.
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I make money from uneducated public hysteria.
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Sounds good Wodgina :)...what do you do?
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I am considering the eventual idea of selling some processed foods at various markets at weekends, things like cakes or pastry from foreign lands. I suppose it sounds a bit hypocritical, given my diet, but I have no problem with helping people to become less healthy, if that's what they want.
Really?
That sounds very negative.
Why are you going to sell junk food? For money?
Löwenherz
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Really?
That sounds very negative.
Why are you going to sell junk food? For money?
Löwenherz
Extra money would be nice. I want to afford the best re computer equipment, for example, no matter how expensive. Anyway, I am not talking about junk food like candy-floss, chcocolate or whatever, I am referring to higher quality foods like Viennese cakes etc.
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I am referring to higher quality foods like Viennese cakes etc.
You call that high quality foods?? If you would be selling sturdy home cooked paleo food (like venison, wild boar etc) then i would agree but cakes? i don't get that!
I do agree though that it is not necessary hypocrite to sell cooked foods. You are just providing a need like any businessman.
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I mean high quality by the viewpoint of cooked foodists of course, sort of semi-weston-price, perhaps organic ingredients, though pasteurised dairy rather than raw dairy. Viennese cakes, for example, are far better than the dried-out highly processed crap sold in UK bakeries etc.
There are gradients to everything:- real ale may not be rawpalaeo but it's way healthier than lager or other beers.
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People hate those that try and show them something good and love those that give them short term pleasure or relief. You can lead a horse to water, but if you want a decent life you can't be trying to make it drink all the time.
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One of the things I've noticed, after going rawpalaeo, is that my body less and less can deal with cooked foods, over the years. Cooked foods I eat tend to stay much longer in the stomach than raw foods, so that I vomit them all up if I eat too much thereof in one meal. Dehydrated food like croissants are more difficult to swallow, due to less mucus being produced in my throat than in pre-raw days, forcing me to swallow lots of water to wash them down. I also often now get a burning sensation further down the throat in the case of some cooked foods. I've always been OK with eating cooked foods during certain rare occasions like family dinners, so this is not ideal, but it is obviously the result of eating mostly raw foods for years and years which has altered the digestive system etc.
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So if we want to keep the ability to digest some cooked foods now and then, do you think we should keep some cooked foods in our diet?
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I think one should only opt for cooked foods during important social occasions, not all the time. Always having a few cooked foods along with raw foods, I suspect, taxes the body too much as the 2 foods require different processes(for example, cooked foods seem to require more stomach acid to be produced).
For me, the best option is still to only eat those few cooked foods that I still can consume without too much hassle, when having family dinners etc. Sure, as time goes by , more of those foods will likely become a problem re digestion etc., in the long run but that's OK.
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Yeah, but I don't want to get to the point where I'm vomiting every time I eat a bit too much cooked foods at one of these social occasions.
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Yeah, but I don't want to get to the point where I'm vomiting every time I eat a bit too much cooked foods at one of these social occasions.
I'd say eating cooked once every 2 or 3 months is plenty to keep your body able to handle some cooked stuff. The only time I ever eat cooked is at those social occasions, probably less than 8 times a year, and I actually handle the cooked stuff just as well as I always did, back when I ate it every day.
I am careful to stick with meat, veggies and fruits, though, and usually not heavily cooked (never fried, usually just boiled or roasted), and I usually eat plenty of raw fruit with it, when I can.
I NEVER eat grains, of any kind, and almost never eat beans. I think I've eaten beans twice in the last 3 years. Those foods really do make me feel worse, so I avoid them.
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Yeah, but I don't want to get to the point where I'm vomiting every time I eat a bit too much cooked foods at one of these social occasions.
Well, the vomiting only occurs if I eat a lot of cooked food at one time.
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Haven’t you guys grabbed the fact that cooked food are noxious and that, as well as with all nuisances such as dairy, alcohol, coffee, cigarette smoke and drugs, there’ an habituation of the body which being continuously flooded with those pollutants, enters in a state of tolerance to them, which means it doesn’t react anymore by rejecting them immediately - at the price of getting slowly intoxicated?
Getting our body out of tolerance, losing its habituation for such stuff, is of course favourable to our long term health. Wanting to remain in a state of tolerance to poisons while eating raw paleo makes no sense; it can lead to troubles in the long term.
Furthermore, the nuisance of cooked, Neolithic and modern food is not in a linear relationship to the amount eaten. Eating 90% raw paleo doesn’t bring us 90% of the benefits of raw paleo. A bit like that a train of 100 axles can’t reach 90% of it’s maximum speed if it’s got 10 axles out of the track…
For unavoidable social occasions, you can always order oysters, raw vegetables and fruits and /or bring your food with you. We let the others free to eat what they want, so they have to let us free to eat what we want as well.
Otherwise, it’s hard to remain raw paleo. In the long run, people who do a few exceptions by eating sometimes cooked food are slowly attracted over the years to eat more and more often cooked food and finally end up to eat completely cooked.
The only easy way is to eat 100% raw. Tell them we are doing an experiment and we want to do it properly. So everybody (friends, family) finally understand that they lose their energy to try to make you eating cooked food with them and they stop bothering you.
Cheers
François
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I disagree. First of all, many people here have problems eating raw meats during social gatherings, as people view that with horror. If I were to eat only raw fruits at such gatherings, I would come across as a difficult guest etc. Secondly, eating only 90 percent raw doesn't necessarily make it more difficult to stay on the diet. I, for example, have now spent 10 years on a RVAF diet, sometimes eating as much as 4 cooked meals a week, at other times not eating a single piece of cooked food for a whole year, and inbetween that range(most common is 1 cooked meal a month). Yet I still carry on with the diet because I remember vividly the intense pain I had when I consumed a mostly cooked diet. While my body has healed so that I am much less likely to get very painful stomach-aches after eating any cooked animal food etc. than in pre-raw days, I am extremely unlikely to ever switch away from a mostly raw diet, as a result of those memories. It's all about how strong one's will is.
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Of course, everyone is different and it may work for you this way if you have a strong will.
I speak about what has been commonly seen in Switzerland and France and what I’ve seen around me. And if you want the best chances against cancer, for instance, you‘d better avoid any cooked food.
It’s funny but I never had any difficulties in social meals. A guy bringing his own food and asking just for a plate, a fork and a knife can hardly be seen as a difficult guest. Sometimes, clever people may ask pertinent questions and then we have a discussion much more interesting then the common boring trivialities.
And I never cared much about what the others think about me. I do what I want and the others can do what they want. I just avoid disgusting them by eating whole raw fish and raw meat in these occasions.
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Well, the vomiting only occurs if I eat a lot of cooked food at one time.
Why do you eat a lot of cooked food at one time?
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Why do you eat a lot of cooked food at one time?
Force of habit. When I eat raw animal foods I usually eat a lot at one time re 1 large meal a day, and so do the same often with cooked foods.
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In my country it would be considered rude if I brought my own food.
My technique is I eat a lot at home. Then in the party I will look for the raw food, usually sashimi or ceviche is there, or if only cooked meat, just a little to be polite.
But I draw the line with wheat. I tell the host I'm allergic to wheat.
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In my country it would be considered rude if I brought my own food.
Same here. It would also be inappropriate if I made a big deal over what I'm going to eat. For example, last week, there was a catered retirement party at work. Omitting the non-paleo foods, I enjoyed cooked paleo: meats, salad, tomato salsa. Nobody is going to be rude enough to ask me why I didn't eat the other foods (rice, beans, dessert).
It's not a problem if I bring my own raw lunch to the staff lunch room. When a co-worker asks me what I brought for lunch, I smile and say, "Sashimi!"
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It's all about how strong one's will is.
Exactly.
I think that most cravings for cooked food can be controlled by consuming enough high-quality raw fat.
Some people are so weak-willed that they need to avoid cooked food completely for months or even years, before going back to eating it occasionally...but I think most people can eat some cooked food for social reasons, and then easily avoid it at all other times.
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I bring my 'lunch'/eyeballs or whatever to work. Its a pretty relaxed environment. Other situations I'm sure I would not feel comfortable doing so. I've turned down opportunities and such re work or living situations or even relationships based on diet..which is fairly ridiculous. I think anyone who says they have not would be fibbing somewhat. I think part of this is par for the course but when it can be avoided...there are many more components in life and even health that are important than eating some kind of idealized approach..even if there is scientific evidence pointing to the efficacy of being 'pure' or something.
In terms of addictions some are very physical and some are mental/social programs. I agree with ck that in my experience if one is on a program with lots of raw fats and little sugary or starchy carbs..there really isn't much of a hole to swing into when eating the occasional cooked paleo food. Partially because alot of these foods in this category cooked are not much more exciting and partly because there is far less bacterias and other things craving these foods..particularly in the forms of cooked sugars+fats which the bacteria of carb systems love to wig out on. None of the food I eat raw I ever really think to cook up..unless I have a guest or something in which insistence on raw etc...would be a poor decision so if I'm eating cooked food its only social reasons or some kind of novelty. I mean whats less healthy? perpetual singledom or scrambled eggs and a cocktail here and there?
I find the inclusion of some foods which need to be cooked like herbs, some seaweeds, and mushrooms to have benefit in my diet and these never drive me to eating crap like when I was on a high carb raw diet. If I eat even highly processed stuff like organic chicken sausage on a bus trip or pasteurized dairy I get the little hangover and move on and don't find myself pawing at other 'treats' ever. On high carb raw I would fill up on fruits before I went out and not eat and still be temped by smells and such. Every once and awhile I would eat and then binge on natural 'raw' foods like nuts or in the first year or two break down at thanksgiving and go berserk on some kind of sweet potato pie. With my current diet the idea of this is ridiculous. I don't even eat the raw foods that are supposedly healthy if they don't fit the pattern of what is a workable diet for me..even if they are tasty. thats addictions/comfort food stuff and feeding bacteria/fungus and is not nutrition.
I havn't messed around with grain foods since back on RAF but when I did begin eating them after a few years raw I never seemed to adjust back (at least not in the months of doing so and even in Weston Price kind of style). All those things have a mental component I am sure though too.
The ideal for me is eating food for fuel and finding the little pleasures here and there which certainly includes outings with non raw partners and friends; that and having no desire for any particular foods and just ordering things off a list that I hanv't eaten in awhile generally.
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I think that most cravings for cooked food can be controlled by consuming enough high-quality raw fat.
Some people are so weak-willed that they need to avoid cooked food
I find it disturbing the occasional tendency to write of difficulty with getting on the diet as lack of willpower. It's not helpful to newbies who may be at different stages with diet, coming here straight off a bad standard diet etc. and are not used to controlling the addictions. In my case it's not true coming from a strict diet and exercise regime, when I started I had enough willpower to make myself stick to it for a couple of weeks when my stomach couldn't take enough food, I was making tiny green stools and energy was so low I was nearly fainting. But I had to back off and retry and still doing that process.
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I think that most cravings for cooked food can be controlled by consuming enough high-quality raw fat.
Some people are so weak-willed that they need to avoid cooked food
I find it disturbing the occasional tendency to write of difficulty with getting on the diet as lack of willpower. It's not helpful to newbies who may be at different stages with diet, coming here straight off a bad standard diet etc. and are not used to controlling the addictions. In my case it's not true coming from a strict diet and exercise regime, when I started I had enough willpower to make myself stick to it for a couple of weeks when my stomach couldn't take enough food, I was making tiny green stools and energy was so low I was nearly fainting. But I had to back off and retry and still doing that process.
I'm not saying willpower is the whole answer. Eating plenty of raw fat is the larger component. However, willpower is like a muscle, the more you work it, over a long period of time, the stronger it is. Some people have used their willpower so little, for so long, that they have to completely avoid cooked food for months or even a few years, to reduce the cravings. It's not that they were born weak-willed, although I think that can be part of it.
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During my 100% raw stretches, if I did it until my body was really happy, when I ate my first cooked food - out it would come - projectile style. Either that or I'd be holding my stomach and feeling really sick and not being a very good guest at all.
So, being more of a bunny than a carnivore anyway, all I had to was gently say that I had a special diet that I needed to eat for health reasons. :'( This usually would get me much sympathy, compassion and people real conversation if any. I wasn't telling anyone else that what I was eating was better or right, not even thinking it, just that poor little me had to eat it - and that was the truth because truth be told I'd much rather be able to eat nothing but chocolate cake and feel good. I would make a big deal about how yummy the greenery that was used as decorations was - or the tiny salad at the beginning. I got lots of giggles. American restaurants all have salads and it's customary to bring a dish usually if you are going to someone's home and I would always bring something I could eat some of.
What would usually happen is that I would bring with me on outings a big basket of all sorts of raw goodies because inevitably everyone would want to taste what I had because it looked so interesting and yummy - and I had to bring lots and lots just to get a little for myself.
It is my opinion that what other people really want from me is my attention, my good will, my positive energy, my loving thoughts - and these all flow so much more easily when I don't block that with bad food. People really don't care what I eat I find. They care much more what I think towards them.
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Some time back, I went to a national park full of unique flora and fauna, and was told by one of the forest rangers there that wild deer there sometimes die from certain parasites ingested when they eat the occasional snail by accident and thse parasites infect the liver exclusively. The rangers are allowed to eat the resulting carcasses minus the liver, but not sell them. I was told that the meat tastes out of this world as the deer have access to all sorts of unusually rare herbs etc. in the national park.
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I came across a US slang reference to raw meat, namely "hamburger". Why is it called that? I always thought it referred to McDonald's-type burgers.
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hmmm, where was it? was it referring to raw ground meat already in patties?... that would be my only guess, i've not heard raw meat referenced that way otherwise.
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hmmm, where was it? was it referring to raw ground meat already in patties?... that would be my only guess, i've not heard raw meat referenced that way otherwise.
Yeah, it was a reference to ground, raw meats. Can't remember where I got it from, I was just randomly surfing the net, a great way to learn info I wouldn't otherwise find out.
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I just read an amusing article about how there are no "real men" left. It gave Bill Clinton as an example, of a womaniser who has turned "metrosexual", now that he has gone vegan. I find it highly amusing that there appears to be a view in society that men who eat diets high in meat are considered more "manly" than those eating diets consisting mostly or wholly from plants. Indeed, eaters of raw animal foods appear to viewed as being more savage and more masculine even than cooked-meat-eaters - I note that some newspaper articles refer to raw-meat-eaters as "cavemen" etc.
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Probably because there is some truth to it.
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OK, I've done some good work on wikipedia re the raw foodism page in the last few months, the richard wrangham page and related sites. Now I have an issue with the control of fire wikipedia page, as the guy who started the page is hopelessly biased and just undoes my revisions. If anyone who is already familiar with wikipedia guidelines wants to join in re discussions/editing of that page, that would be great.
I realise that wikipedia is constantly changing, so I will by the end of next year have added more pages to rawpaleodiet.com which debunk all the pro-cooking claims, but, frankly, most people find out about raw foodism via sites like wikipedia, so it helps if we don't have stupid, ignorant blanket statements in those pages stating that raw foodists are idiots because , supposedly cooking was invented 2 million years ago etc.
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I just read that Jared Diamond has been accused of fraud, as of 2009, and is being sued for 10 million dollars. I'm not surprised as there have been recurrent scientific scandals/frauds in the last 80 years or so within the field of anthropology, such as Margaret Mead's fraud re Samoa etc. I see that Diamond is a big fan of Freud, another famous fraud whose ideas were roundly debunked by Eysenck.
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Probably because there is some truth to it.
Definitely!
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Rather ironic that Diamond is being sued by the widow of Stephen Jay Gould, another controversial scientist. Nassim Taleb has pointed out that social sciences in general are highly prone to error, bias, logical fallacies, etc.
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I am away for some weeks, won't be able to reply more often than once a week or so.
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I have recently been investigating the negative effects of cooked food on teeth re human evolution. The stuff debunks weston-price's notions somewhat. I will explain in another thread, tomorrow probably.
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The stuff debunks weston-price's notions somewhat.
Which part? The fact that changes in diet caused tribes to go from almost no crooked teeth to terribly crooked teeth in one generation is indisputable. It's caused by the narrowing of the jaw from lack of vitamin K-2 in the diet, as well as general under-development of the lower face, which is probably caused by lack of vitamin D in the diet. Poor absorption/use of those two vitamins, plus poor calcium absorption/use, are probably also factors.
Debunk indeed. Just because he's an American, and advocated cooked food, doesn't mean he didn't know about teeth. The man was the first president of the American Dental Association. He pioneered many of the techniques of modern dentistry.
I will readily grant that Dr. Price should have been far more clear about the health problems from cooked food and grains. I think he understood them. I think, though, that he was afraid that people would consider a diet of raw meat/fish/organs plus some raw fruits to be extreme, and was hoping to first get people to at least eat as well as the traditional tribes. You have to admit, even accomplishing THAT would be a HUGE step toward better health. The all-raw or nearly-all-raw part can come second.
I have no doubt he saw lots of meat and fish eaten raw in his travels. You'll notice, though, that he never MENTIONS it. There are only two possible reasons for that:
1. He was too stupid to understand the importance of eating raw, or only very lightly-cooked
2. He was afraid that people would consider eating raw animals foods too extreme, and just wanted them to eat better quality, even if that meant hiding (by omission) the usefulness of the raw diet.
As smart as he was, I'm betting on the second option. HEAVILY.
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I couldn't care less whether he was an american or not. What matters to me is that he revived the whole silly "noble savage" theory. Anyway, I'll mention all the data in the other thread. Not saying it cancels out all his utterings re teeth, just some of them.
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I recently checked the bite-pressure of dogs versus wolves and wolves out-perform dogs in this regard by a considerable amount. So dogs have weaker jaws than wolves. I recently re-checked some articles claiming that eating softer, cooked food led to the deterioration in size of the human jaw, thus increasing the number of dental problems, however, since dogs seem to get weakened jaws due to bad genetics/human-led breeding rather than cooked foods since they have been eating raw until the last 9-12 decades(right?), it is similiarly possible that eating softer cooked foods did not lead to human dental problems and smaller jaws per se, but that the use of fire re warding off predators led to a lack of natural selection as a result, thus allowing more defective people with smaller jaws to breed.
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I recently checked the bite-pressure of dogs versus wolves and wolves out-perform dogs in this regard by a considerable amount. So dogs have weaker jaws than wolves. I recently re-checked some articles claiming that eating softer, cooked food led to the deterioration in size of the human jaw, thus increasing the number of dental problems, however, since dogs seem to get weakened jaws due to bad genetics/human-led breeding rather than cooked foods since they have been eating raw until the last 9-12 decades(right?), it is similiarly possible that eating softer cooked foods did not lead to human dental problems and smaller jaws per se, but that the use of fire re warding off predators led to a lack of natural selection as a result, thus allowing more defective people with smaller jaws to breed.
I don't think that humans fought with their teeth all that much. I imagine we used weapons well before we started using fire, even if it was just rocks and sticks. I could be wrong.
As far as dogs, does your research allow for differences in body size between dogs and wolves?
I would also say that some dog species probably have far stronger bites than wolves, like pit bulls and especially Rottweilers.
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I somewhere was exposed to the thesis that it was a genetic mutation of a smaller jaw that allowed for our brain size to increase. The same gene difference is in muscular dystrophy (if I remember right) also creates a smaller weaker jaw. Great apes powerful jaws make larger brain capacity impossible supposedly.
Thought it was fascinating at the time and should have taken notes. I wonder if I can find where I learned of it. I'll try to search for it tomorrow. The idea that a genetic disease mutation made our brains able to get large......... talk about the power of diversity and mutations. It can be surprising what can lead to better adaptation.
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I don't think that humans fought with their teeth all that much. I imagine we used weapons well before we started using fire, even if it was just rocks and sticks. I could be wrong.
As far as dogs, does your research allow for differences in body size between dogs and wolves?
I would also say that some dog species probably have far stronger bites than wolves, like pit bulls and especially Rottweilers.
Body-size does matter a little bit, in that the bigger a dog is the stronger it will be than other members of his breed, but not necessarily stronger than other breeds.
A few websites claim that only pit-bulls have stronger bite-pressures than wolves, but the concensus seems to be that wolves have a far bigger bite-pressure than even pit-bulls, rottweilers etc. Indeed, there is even a website which claims that the claims re pit-bulls bite-pressure are woefully exaggerated.
I don't think that fighting with teeth was the main issue. The idea is that teeth deteriorated due to congenital conditions becoming more common after natural selection vanished with the advent of fire, used for warding off predators.
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Found something re: gene mutation that caused smaller jaw and led to larger brain.
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/march04/myosinmutant.html (http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/march04/myosinmutant.html)
There's a bunch out there on the subject but I don't have the time atm to look into it further. But it's an interesting hypothesis.
I remember now that I saw an interview with the scientist that was looking for the gene that caused his brother's muscular dystrophy and found the gene linked to MD - the thing was - that it also was the same gene that was linked to a difference between us and apes and when that gene is "normal", like the apes, our jaws would be too big to allow for our brain development.
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While I'm all in favour of bacteria, I still had one minor phobia left. That is, until recently, if I dropped some portion of food I was eating in the street, I would refuse to pick it up and eat it afterwards. Just today, I found I was easily able to do so, after all.
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I have come across a friend of a friend who has had Lyme Disease for 4 or 5 years. I have been indirectly asked by a friend of his to give my verdict on a cooked-palaeodiet. I am curious to know if anyone has ever healed themselves from Lyme Disease on a RVAF diet?
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I have been asked to do a review of a Kurt Harris essay:-
http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/3/30/paleo-20-a-diet-manifesto.html (http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/3/30/paleo-20-a-diet-manifesto.html)
It has to be one of the most wrongheaded posts I have ever read. So many "facts" cited which turn out to be based on wholly false information etc. Painful to read.
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I have come across a friend of a friend who has had Lyme Disease for 4 or 5 years. I have been indirectly asked by a friend of his to give my verdict on a cooked-palaeodiet. I am curious to know if anyone has ever healed themselves from Lyme Disease on a RVAF diet?
I knew a guy from the rawfoods.com forums who did. He was not getting better on a vegan diet, but he started adding raw egg yolks, and saw tremendous improvement. That was about 10 years ago.
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I have come across a friend of a friend who has had Lyme Disease for 4 or 5 years. I have been indirectly asked by a friend of his to give my verdict on a cooked-palaeodiet. I am curious to know if anyone has ever healed themselves from Lyme Disease on a RVAF diet?
I have Chronic Lyme and Coinfections and have recently started to eat RVAF again. We'll see how I'm doing in a couple weeks to a couple months and see if we can answer that.
I know that Dr. Ron of the Weston Price Foundation has Lyme and also eats raw. He said he has almost no symptoms now because of his nutritionally dense raw diet. http://www.drrons.com/diet-chronic-disease-and-optimal-health-4.htm (http://www.drrons.com/diet-chronic-disease-and-optimal-health-4.htm)
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..I know that Dr. Ron of the Weston Price Foundation has Lyme and also eats raw. He said he has almost no symptoms now because of his nutritionally dense raw diet. http://www.drrons.com/diet-chronic-disease-and-optimal-health-4.htm (http://www.drrons.com/diet-chronic-disease-and-optimal-health-4.htm)
According to wikipedia only 25 - 50 % of all infected people show symptoms.
I guess that Lyme is not a disease at all (hope this doesn't sound arrogant) but something completely normal for us and only problematic like so many other "dis-eases" if we live on cooked starches and other junk.
Löwenherz
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That's basically what Dr. Ron says at that link.
Here's another Lyme disease success story:
Real Life Testimonial: Ben’s recovery from Lyme disease
Posted by Amber Karnes on Feb 7, 2011 in Real Life Testimonials
http://robbwolf.com/2011/02/07/real-life-testimonial-bens-recovery-from-lyme-disease/ (http://robbwolf.com/2011/02/07/real-life-testimonial-bens-recovery-from-lyme-disease/)
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That's basically what Dr. Ron says at that link.
Here's another Lyme disease success story:
Real Life Testimonial: Ben’s recovery from Lyme disease
Posted by Amber Karnes on Feb 7, 2011 in Real Life Testimonials
http://robbwolf.com/2011/02/07/real-life-testimonial-bens-recovery-from-lyme-disease/ (http://robbwolf.com/2011/02/07/real-life-testimonial-bens-recovery-from-lyme-disease/)
Does he eat raw paleo?
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I doubt it. Probably more like the WAPF, which does admittedly advocate some raw animal foods.
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Dr Ron is a fan of the WAPF and has written articles about that diet.
The last time I bought some raw wild game, I had one of the butchers ask me how I cooked the meats, as they occasionally do. I rarely have the guts to state that I eat it raw, so I just stand there, usually, quite speechless. The trouble is that if I'm honest, then that just causes more problems.
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Dr Ron is a fan of the WAPF and has written articles about that diet.
The last time I bought some raw wild game, I had one of the butchers ask me how I cooked the meats, as they occasionally do. I rarely have the guts to state that I eat it raw, so I just stand there, usually, quite speechless. The trouble is that if I'm honest, then that just causes more problems.
Tell him you eat it plain without much preparation; you like the flavor of the game to come through without adulteration. No lies yet you don't have to worry about telling them you eat it raw. :D
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The trouble is that if I'm honest, then that just causes more problems.
What kind of problems ? You're a customer and you're free to do what you want!
I don't buy meat from butchers, but I wouldn't be afraid to tell them as I tell other people if they ask. They can think what they want, I don't care and I guess they feel it because I've never got any aggressive reaction.
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The trouble is that , sometimes, some sellers are very limited and feel that they are "doing me a favour" by pretending to not have the kind of meats I want. The phobias about raw meats are quite extensive in society, still.
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Why bother? Let simple people live their simple lifes.
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If I'm buying something at the farmer's market that I know is available and ready I say straight out that I'm eating it raw so that if there is something substandard or of concern about the meat I can find out. Usually, the vendor responds very well and suggests what probably would be best if eaten raw.
However, if I am searching for something special or for organs I always say that it is for my dogs. It's never a lie because my dogs do get some. The difference is that they are willing to get and sell me much more if it only has to be quality enough for a dog or a kind of food that is accepted for dogs. They are afraid of getting in trouble otherwise - which is very easy to understand. If they sell me something that I get sick from that isn't an accepted human food they could be held accountable. It's not fair - but in our litigious and rule-based society - it's just the way it is. Farmers are really under the microscope and it's hard enough being a small farmer these days without making yourself more vulnerable to the USDA, FDA and crazy people with lawyers.
Trust has to be built up. I buy it for my dogs and try it on them first. Then I try just a little and see if it's ok for me. Then I eat more. Then husband eats it. Then I go back and say that we've been enjoying the meat raw and it's amazing and we feel really good. Then they can breath a bit easier and are willing to do more.
Another thing you can do is say that you like your meat extremely rare. That also is quite true and has most of the same dangers that raw does - so you can get a real feel of the quality by watching the person's face. If it's not good enough to be eaten very rare, it's not good enough to eat raw. Rare is a word that is accepted in our society.
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The last time I bought some raw wild game, I had one of the butchers ask me how I cooked the meats, as they occasionally do. I rarely have the guts to state that I eat it raw, so I just stand there, usually, quite speechless. The trouble is that if I'm honest, then that just causes more problems.
(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w223/greeksquared/awkward2.jpg)
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ROFL paleodonk. That's not very nice, but it was funny.
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One other thing I started noticed after going on this diet for several years was that, whenever I ate cooked food, especially highly processed cooked food, I would be usually likely to get gas coming up into the mouth, causing me to vomit it out if I overate more than a little bit at a time.This was a useful disincentive re eating more of it. I wonder if this is just that the body no longer feels the need to make the extra effort to digest cooked foods once one is mostly raw, as it's a strain on the body, so that various extra processes needed to properly digest cooked foods are omitted.
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I also notice an increase in heat after I eat cooked foods.
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I also got an unusual question on one of my other websites:-
" I am a meat dept. manager. A customer asked me for the best meat to eat raw. She stated that another store recommended sirloin steak. I recommended filet mignon, which was too expensive for her. She also asked and bought a mock tender or chuck tender roast. I recommended and sold her a tri-tip roast. She wanted to make kabobs. She asked if I recommended vinegar. I told her I would find out for her.
What is the best raw meat to eat raw?
Is there a process, such as vinegar, to prepare the type of meat?"
If anyone can provide me with other data, I would be much obliged. So far, I have told him that a small portion of cooked-food-eaters will prefer eating raw meat only from fat-free cuts, such as fillet steak/filet mignon, but that most will not mind fattier cuts. I also told him that raw-meat-dieters would not care a damn what cuts of meat they got for mincing, and that they would simply go in for the cheapest cuts of meat. If anyone has any further comments to add re this, I would be most grateful...
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It depends on the person. Most people prefer more tender cuts. I personally enjoy brisket and hanger steak.
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I like all sorts of junk in my cut of meat. I like hard chewy tendonous, stuff that I gnaw on awhile then just swallow. I like chunks of hard fat on the outside or the thick lines of it that run through it. I like the heart best b/c it has very tender spots, thick fat, little ropey chordae tendineae, even a little rubbery vena cava. I feel like most people would find it gross, but I always liked mixed textures. I like chicken cartilage, always did, that really bugged folks, so I would go in after others had left that a dig in, now I eat all the "best" parts I want first and cook the rest for family. When I ate SAD I would mix all sorts of nuts and berries into granola, with flakes, then mix yogurt and milk. That satisfied the texture thing then and this is what satisfies it now.
Some people really like smooth stuff, that kind of person might be raw Filet Mignon.
Also, if it's their first time eating raw meat they would probably appreciate the filet mignon, b/c mentally it's less of a leap. I still like to dip meat in a fatty, creamy sauce, like herbed sour cream, or Dijon mustard, or creamy horseradish sauce.
If she was making raw kabobs, I think a dipping oil or sauce would be better than a vinegar dip or marinade
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Did you ask the butcher what the woman's criteria for the "best" type of meat to eat raw was?
If she's talking about flavor then fatty of course.
If she's talking about tenderness, well that'll vary by breed. But you know which cuts are tenderest raw as well as I do. Of course that's not that important as cooking is what toughens meat, at least initially.
If she's talking about safety obviously that point is moot.
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The mention of vinegar suggests to me that the customer is thinking that special preparation is necessary involving an acid, such as with ceviche. As you are probably aware, vinegar and lemon "cook" food, in a sense, without heat and may kill some pathogens, though not likely all. If it makes the customer feel more at ease about it they could take that transitional step and then if they feel more courageous later they could try really raw.
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My choice is rump roast, so tri-tip is in the right area, AFAIC. From this area comes the nice, large roasts which are easy to cut up into kabob cubes.
I didn't notice mention of "grass-fed," so if that needs to be specified, I would bring it up.
If the customer has internet, have the butcher send her here. I have learned so much about things that I wouldn't have thought about asking.
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Well, I sent off my answer. PP may be right, the mention of vinegar suggests to me that she was no raw foodist.
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I am in the middle of a 7-day water-fast. I have previously been eating too many carbs and cooked foods given the Christmas period - plus I have been overindulging on raw foods, so this is all useful. I am now several days into it, and am experiencing the "ketosis" effect I usually get when I fast for a few days(ie heightened concentration levels etc.). If this is what RZCers experience all the time, then I envy them as my own RZC experiment was not successful.
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I got an unusual question from allexperts.com which I thought I would put here since I think others will be able to provide additional useful info:-
"I live in an area where grass fed beef is cheap and easily available. I read about how fermentation of cod liver (cod liver oil) boosts the vitamin K2 content. Fermenting soy beans in rice straw (natto) also creates large amounts of vitamin K2. I want to ferment beef liver and see if the same thing happens. Beef liver is a lot easier to procure than fish liver.
I have a beef liver sitting out in my truck. Any recommendations on how to ferment it? For cod livers, the procedure seems to have been dump them in a barrel of sea water and leave it outdoors for a year. That sounds similar to a pickling brine. Should I just brine it the way I would for making regular pickles?
My goal isn't to have something edible per se, but to have the bacteria digest the liver and produce oil."
I only know how to age raw liver to make "high-meat". I am really none too familiar with how to ferment raw liver from the point of view of a cooked-foodist, though, what to pickle it in etc.
Any help appreciated. Thanks!
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A little sea salt and a little whey and then seal it? Breath daily? Wait until the oil has separated from the tissue? Will take some experimenting!
or..
http://www.eatcleanlifthard.com/forum/showthread.php?54146-raw-fermented-liver-amp-salmon...do-I-dare (http://www.eatcleanlifthard.com/forum/showthread.php?54146-raw-fermented-liver-amp-salmon...do-I-dare)
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I hang my liver in the fridge, and it turns a little sour. I think the bacteria is feeding on the carbs in the liver. Thus, it naturally ferments.
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I am in the middle of a 7-day water-fast. I have previously been eating too many carbs and cooked foods given the Christmas period
What happens if you eat "too many carbs"?
Löwenherz
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What happens if you eat "too many carbs"?
Löwenherz
My appetite increases and I eat too much food.
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My appetite increases and I eat too much food.
It's really funny how different our bodies react.
On a raw diet I never ever feel hungry, no matter what I eat or how much I eat. Somehow, for me food feels as if it was just entertainment and nothing more. And my weight is rock stable, no matter what kind of raw foods I eat.
Cooked food makes everything very complicated, EVERYTHING.
What was the meaning of Pandora's box? Cooked food!
Löwenherz
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Tyler, Are you interested in sake at all? I know you have reported in the past that you drink "real ale," which is apparently raw. I stumbled upon the fact that there is raw sake on the Internet not long ago and discovered that my local liquor store carries one brand, which also happens to be organic. Thought you might be interested. I notice that it tastes WAY better to me than the pasteurized sakes I've tried. It still chaps my lips pretty badly, like some other processed carby foods, but I doubt it would do that to you, as you seem to handle carby foods much better than me.
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Cooked food makes everything very complicated, EVERYTHING.
If I had to sum up my thoughts on cooked food in one simple sentence, this would be it. Of course, cooked food addicts never listen, but it's still the truth, no matter whether they listen or not.
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Tyler, Are you interested in sake at all? I know you have reported in the past that you drink "real ale," which is apparently raw. I stumbled upon the fact that there is raw sake on the Internet not long ago and discovered that my local liquor store carries one brand, which also happens to be organic. Thought you might be interested. I notice that it tastes WAY better to me than the pasteurized sakes I've tried. It still chaps my lips pretty badly, like some other processed carby foods, but I doubt it would do that to you, as you seem to handle carby foods much better than me.
Oh, interesting. Might try that at some stage.
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Cool. I don't know what is available in the UK, but in the USA, I came across "Sho Chiku Bai Nama Sake (namazake), organic"
Type: Junmai Nama ("nama" apparently typically indicates that the sake was not pasteurized--aka "raw" sake--and was bottled immediately after production--aka "draft" sake--and "Junmai" apparently refers to the rice being less polished, and therefore sweeter, than other grades like Ginjo. However, the Website also calls it "Ginjo grade," so I suspect that it is actually in-between (Junmai-Ginjo).
http://www.takarasake.com/sake.php (http://www.takarasake.com/sake.php)
"Nama is a draft-style sake that is not heat pasteurized but rather micro-filtered. A bold and refreshing flavor with a fruity aroma is a distinctive character of Nama."
Organic version: "It's totally natural, made from OCIA certified organic rice harvested in the Sacramento Valley. This Ginjo grade sake is an elegant Nama with a soft texture."
Pronunciation of the Japanese way of saying the sake type, namazake: http://www.forvo.com/word/namazake/ (http://www.forvo.com/word/namazake/)
In contrast to nama sakes, most sakes are reportedly heated twice before sale, and sometimes heated yet a third time when served by restaurants.
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That looks tasty, Phil. I might have to try that sometime, when I'm out having sushi.
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Nama sake does taste better, less harsh, than the standard heat-processed sakes.
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Tyler, what do you think of a cooked foodist who...
> appears to give hunter gatherer research more emphasis than the WAPF does, stating "By comparing hunter-gatherers and modern people, I show how the quality, quantity, and context of meat consumption will affect the outcome for any individual"
> has a "Hunter-Gatherer Diet Guide" that includes legumes not edible raw and unprocessed, like beans and soy, and whole cereals grains, not even bothering to mention anything about preparation techniques to reduce toxins that the WAPF cautions about, again citing HG evidence to support it (such as, "the collecting of grains from the ground would supply hunter-gatherers with a ready source of vegetal food until October" http://www.pnas.org/content/101/9/2692.full (http://www.pnas.org/content/101/9/2692.full))
> has written, "if you want to think like a chimp, go for the raw food diet; but if you want to be human, use fire," citing Wrangham as a credible source and even dedicating a blog post to a postive review of Wrangham's Catching Fire
> has also written, "Wrangham points out that we have good reason to believe that we wouldn't have the brain we need to do these things [like use computers] if we hadn't started cooking."
Is that the sort of thing you mean when you speak of Noble Savage theorists?
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Well, if he was taking about "purity" etc. of HGs, then sure. Who is this guy?
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I'll PM you about him.
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As regards the PM, my view is that as long as the relevant article one cites is reasonably full of data and is in line with other reliable sources, then it doesn't matter if the rest of the author's ideas are ridiculous. After all, no author is perfect, that's physically impossible, so one anyway has to pick and choose data from a thousand authors in order to get the whole picture. I mean, I happily quote Weston-Price when his data is backed by other authors I consider reliable, even though I think that many of his ideas are flawed.
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Ah, OK, cool.
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I'm having massive PC trouble so may be incommunicado for some time, here and there.
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Mac, not PC, is back up, hope it stays that way.
Incidentally, while I loathe the heat of the summer, I have noticed, over the years, even more so since going rawpalaeo, that I always need to sleep less in the summer and that, when I wake up, I feel more refreshed, if I am facing a largeish window with the sun coming through in the early morning - same especially applies if I am sleeping in a tent in the open. Often, in such situations I will fall asleep at midnight or 1am, but wake up fully refreshed at around 4 or 5 am when the sky starts turning a bit lighter. By contrast, if I am sleeping in a room which has little access to daylight or during winter, I will feel a bit woozy for 20 minutes or so, even after having had a full eight hours sleep - and I, of course, am far more likely to be very tired if I only sleep a few hours in the latter case. Just wondered if others were also influenced in this way.
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The traditional Eskimos are the most extreme example I've heard regarding this (and presumably arctic Eurasians like the traditional Nenets and Chukchi would be also), what with their reportedly sleeping something like 14 hours per day in the winter and probably less than 8 hours in the summer. They allegedly used to follow nature's fluxes.
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Yes I experience the same thing, I need a full eight hours or more in the winter, and about half of that in the summer. I am from Sweden and the dark winters here really invites us to sleep a lot more than during summer. When I have stayed in Asia for long periods of time I slept for about 6-7 hours per night regardless of season.
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I'm experiencing something odd. My last two stools each had an undigested tomato in them when I looked back as I flushed the toilet. Does this have any significance?
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stop eating tomatoes?
take a probiotic?
If you are talking tomato peels, I used to have some kind of parasites like those.
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Last week, I finally had the courage to ask my one main wildgame supplier as to why their meat-prices were 5 to 7 euros per kilo more than usual. I hadn't had the guts before as there really isn't a suitable alternative source right now - I just hate angering my food-suppliers in any way. Basically, I was told that ordering the meat prepared/not prepared in a certain way meant it was cheaper, so my previous post about sudden rising food-prices in my area is bunk, as now my meat-prices are a third cheaper than previously. It looks like the usual woman at the counter deliberately failed to tell me of this difference in order to get gullible old me to pay out vast extra sums each week. The actual owners, an old woman and her granddaughter, on the other hand, happily explained to me re the difference in prices, and the other woman isn't there any more, so everything's fine. I'm their favourite customer, it seems, as nobody else orders several kilos of raw wild game each week!
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I've recently done the bates method palming method and intend to do it for 5 minutes every hour if possible. It really strengthen the brain-eye connection and makes me feel sharper. I haven't had much success with the Bates Method before, partly because I often failed to do the method regularly, but hopefully this time....
I've also come to realise that Max Stirner, Ayn Rand and Ron Paul are/were the most amazing people on the planet. Being a lazy man, I haven't yet bought their books and just surfed the Internet for extracts and reviews but now I'm buying Stirner's book followed by the others, later.
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Lysander Spooner is also now one of my gurus. I wonder why the vast majority of people are so dumb as to not recognise the brilliance of individualist anarchism.
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I've just had a blood test done though there was no real need for it. I have no idea what all the figures mean.
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I've just had a blood test done though there was no real need for it. I have no idea what all the figures mean.
Would you like to post it?
Aeh, what is this new avatar picture? I can't recognize anything. Is it a laser show? A paleo monster?
Löwenherz
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Would you like to post it?
Ah, what is this new avatar picture? I can't recognize anything. Is it a laser show? A paleo monster?
Löwenherz
It is a depiction of "The Monster From The Id" from the film "Forbidden Planet", being struck by lasers. I'm an SF fan so I thought I'd change my avatar, every now and then.
I may post my results in a day or two.
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I'm going to an unusual festival on October 6th in which I may be given the opportunity to eat some unusual HG traditional foods such as lice, minerals, seaweed, and hopefully even more exotic foods.
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@TD - did you see A Scanner Darkly where they had body suits changing their image every second? How about a script that changes your avatar every few minutes???
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I'm going to an unusual festival on October 6th in which I may be given the opportunity to eat some unusual HG traditional foods such as lice, minerals, seaweed, and hopefully even more exotic foods.
Tell me about that. Is is a UK organization? That sounds interesting.
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@TD - did you see A Scanner Darkly where they had body suits changing their image every second? How about a script that changes your avatar every few minutes???
No, but I need to see that film eventually. I'm happy with this avatar. I only change them rarely.
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Tell me about that. Is is a UK organization? That sounds interesting.
No, an Austrian museum. There's a festival of museums once a year in Austria, and is sometimes quite fun. I'll report back if I get a chance to taste this stuff.
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No, an Austrian museum. There's a festival of museums once a year in Austria, and is sometimes quite fun. I'll report back if I get a chance to taste this stuff.
awesome.
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They'll also be apparently offering larvae(I presume that means grubs, hopefully raw).I'm hoping they will provide generous portions.
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They'll also be apparently offering larvae(I presume that means grubs, hopefully raw).I'm hoping they will provide generous portions.
Let us know what happens.
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Well, it was a disaster. Not only did I stupidly rely on failing public transport, causing major delays, but that taste-exhibit was, mostly, a joke. I was promised seaweed, lice, insect grubs. I think(?)- I got a tiny bit of seaweed(or just green stuff?) along with a tiny bit of pemmican, so, at least I can say I've tried pemmican. It was very dark and full of nodules, and didn't look at all like the pemmican I've seen online. I also ate some grasshoppers, all cooked, of course and drank some wine, supposedly made according to palaeolithic-era rules. But there was none of the beavermeat, lice or grubs as advertised. I got some astronaut-designed meal(all sticky no doubt due to zero-G environments), and ate some genuine pulverised rock-salt . The rock-salt, unlike the useless rock-salt/sea-salt I've gotten from organic supermarkets in the past did not give me the usual nasty feeling in the mouth etc., no doubt due to the extra minerals in it. But, other than that, I mostly just got joke-stalls where they served standard fruit and veg that one can get in any Western supermarket or, worse, stalls which served plastic models of certain foods like shellfish etc.! Indeed, there were one or two occasions where I ate(or almost ate) something before I was told by staff not to do so because it was either plastic or some toxic thing that needed to be cooked. The beaver-stall, instead of providing beaver-meat, had small biscuits on display. I am definitely going to complain.
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I am definitely going to complain.
LOL! I hope that you haven't eaten too much plastic on this wonderful Hunter Gatherer Traditional Food Festival..
Löwenherz
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Tyler - you probably would be better off just going to a pet store! There you can buy on the cheap all sorts of insects to feast on live - at least in the USA you can that is. If there is a pet store that specializes in lizards and snakes that would be better. I would feed them well for a week before eating though. The word "grub" often refers to the pupa stage of development. There are many different species.
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I might consider buying worms for food. Not so keen on insects other than witchetty grubs and the like.
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Most of the things sold as "worms" are actually "grubs" - aka pupae.
Mealworms are the pupae of the darkling beetle for instance.
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I might consider buying worms for food.
Why?
Aren't commercially available worms and insects usually fed with all kinds of unhealthy stuff?
Löwenherz
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Geoff,
have you posted the results of your blood tests anywhere?
Löwenherz
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Too much hassle. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll find an Internet Cafe that can scan the paper, but who knows?
Re worms:- If I feed them on healthy foods they should be fine.
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That's why I suggested feeding them good for at least a week before eating them.
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That's why I suggested feeding them good for at least a week before eating them.
Good point. Maybe feed them some fresh wild-caught seafood and/or seaweed.
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earthworms eat garden scraps, no fat though
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What you feed will have to depend on the bug. Some eat feces and make it into a high quality food source! It's like any farming - you just need a pure source of the being's natural diet.
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Do worms really taste good??
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I would like to see your labs, Tyler.
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That's why I suggested feeding them good for at least a week before eating them.
? Then you would eat as well the meat of any animal as long as it has been fed "good for at least a week" ? :(
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? Then you would eat as well the meat of any animal as long as it has been fed "good for at least a week" ? :(
Good point Iguana. I say AT LEAST a week because then you would be assured that the gut-loaded material at least wasn't bad. Also, many bugs have extremely short digestion times as well as short lifespans. A week to some bugs would be like feeding a cow well for a year. Another thing is that bugs aren't usually fed as "off" of the their natural diets when being raised for industry as cows are. Most mealworms for instance are give actual "meal" of grains (a natural food) which to me is unlike feeding candy to cows as we do! For instance earthworms - unbeknownst to most - do not eat actual garbage or feces. The actual food of the earthworm is the bacteria and microbes that eat those things. Worms just take the other stuff and send it out the other end in a form that is great for plants and in the process create and aerate the soil. Because earthworms arrive where there is compost and take it in through their mouths it is assumed by many that earthworms subsist on the compost itself. So, as long as the material the worms are in is capable of supporting the microbial life that worms need to survive it will support earthworms - so people that raise earthworms are careful not to put anything into the mix that would hurt the delicate fabric of life (eg. colored paper which can kill the microbes). Since these animals are actually easier to provide good food for and are produced in dense masses where adding things like pesticides and heavy metals would endanger the farming process - believe it or not - they are fed usually much better than cows to begin with. It's a lot easier and desirable economically to provide cheap meal for mealworms and superworms and non-toxic materials for red wigglers than it is to provide large acreage of good land for cows.
It of course would be better to feed the bugs particularly well for a few generations before eating - not a hard thing to do at all - but just for tasting to see if someone likes them, a week or two should suffice to not do much harm to Tyler.
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Well, I got an unwanted, unexpected Christmas present in advance from my brother - a dental hygiene appointment. One where they use those ghastly miniature electric saws to get rid of the outer layer from the teeth. Wholly unnecessary. I also was not happy with the dentist mentioning my bleeding gums as being a "bad" thing as the only reason they bled was because his bloody instrument/saw had dug deeply into my gums all over the place. The trouble with these quacks is that one is compelled to go again for further sessions. I have 2 more to do. Well, I'm not the one who's paying for all this, but I just resent the wasted time involved.
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Three dental sessions? That suggests plaque buildup and possible periodontal disease. Did the dentist mention that at all? Normally, cleanings should not cause much bleeding unless you have plaque buildup and gingivitis or periodontal disease. I used to have more bleeding, plaque and a worsening cavity in the past before I added certain pro-dental foods to my diet, including some recommended by Ramiel Nagel, author of Cure Tooth Decay http://www.curetoothdecay.com/. (http://www.curetoothdecay.com/.) I also found an excellent holistic/biological dentist via his site. I'm very pleased. My dentist is so good that one couple sold their house and moved so they could be closer to him.
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I do not let them polish my teeth. I just say No, thanks. So they just remove some plaque from hard to reach areas and that's it.
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Ghastly miniature electric saw? :o Get rid of the outer layer of the teeth? l)
In my foreign country, they use a miniature electric ultrasound probe to remove plaque at the gum line in one visit. They also use that instrument and other sharpened instruments of torture to perform what they call "root planing," which removes plaque even closer to the gum line. Root-planing takes several appointments. The idea is to remove gum-irritating plaque that can harbor bacteria.
I used to need a lot of plaque removal. Now, I use Dr. Nagel's information, plus advice from mizar5.com. My dentist loves my dental hygiene.
You don't have my sympathies, TD. If you have plaque and bleeding gums, you need to take care of it.
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I did deep cleaning to get rid of my built up plaque like yours. I got a good biological dentist. It was beneficial for me. The bleeding gums were addressed. As it was also addressed by tooth drops. Works in combination.
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Just to make things clear once more, I never once have had bleeding gums or loosened teeth since a couple of months after going rawpalaeo. Before that point, I did indeed have bleeding gums and severely weakened teeth, but not since(well, OK, there were the two or three short-lived zero-carb experiments lasting 3 to 6 weeks each where I suddenly developed the same symptoms, but that's all). So, when a dentist uses a nasty little instrument with a metal point to poke into my gums hard until they start bleeding, I do NOT take it as a sign of periodontal disease.
My teeth have been ultra-strong since going rawpalaeo. I use toothpaste still but it's really not necessary.
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I used to have more bleeding, plaque and a worsening cavity in the past before I added certain pro-dental foods to my diet, including some recommended by Ramiel Nagel, author of Cure Tooth Decay http://www.curetoothdecay.com/. (http://www.curetoothdecay.com/.) I also found an excellent holistic/biological dentist via his site. I'm very pleased. My dentist is so good that one couple sold their house and moved so they could be closer to him.
Can you tell me what Ramiel Nagel recommends against bleeding and plaque ?
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Quite a few things. Check out his website http://www.curetoothdecay.com/ (http://www.curetoothdecay.com/)
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Well, forgive me, father, for I have sinned etc.-
As usual, around Christmas time, I have, mainly for social reasons, gone way out of my usual dietary boundaries. I have eaten several different types of Christmas cakes/puddings, plus some stuffing, plus some mulled wine and champagne and the like. I have only held to eating the raw turkey and raw goose raw. Tip:- when buying fowl fattened on grain, choose goose as the red meat is way more appetising. Trouble is getting the sickly white fat off them as it is inedible raw. By contrast, I have no problem with the white fat from grassfed lamb as it tastes great. Things will go back to normal once I finish off the stuffing etc., around the New Year.
It may sound odd, but there are certain psychological reasons for my "falling off the waggon" in this way. First of all, occasionally eating a little non-rawpalaeo does bring back memories of what a ghastly time I had, healthwise, in pre-rawpalaeo days, so, oddly, it acts as a booster to carry on eating raw. Indeed, when I've done something bad or stupid, I will sometimes deliberately eat something revolting like cooked junk food(eg:- doner kebabs) as a "punishment", as I then feel bodged and overly hot etc. afterwards. Plus, I find it sometimes difficult to adapt to social situations. When one meets others, one can't always choose mineral-water and has to choose tea etc. if I'm offered biscuits, I'll eat just one or two of them, and so on. Christmas is a really difficult time to avoid eating some cooked foods. Fortunately, we UKers don't have Thanksgiving.
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This season I got some cooked meat... cooked paleo.
But I draw the line at paleo.
I forgive you.
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I'm looking into more rawpalaeo non-dietary ideas such as cold baths and sungazing etc. I can't stand the cold baths for more than 45 minutes, and I prefer only 30 minutes, but I reckon once a day is fine. It's just that I recall a post by Lex mentioning how extra hardiness can make plants last longer.
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Tyler 30mins in ice cold water is plenty. Fantastic!!! How is the rewarm after? Do you shiver violently or are you able to warm without much shivering?
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I don't notice any shivering at all. My body seems to get used to the feeling of cold quite quickly while in the bath, though after 30 minutes my toes may get a little numb and stiff. My limbs on the surface feel pretty cold to touch for some time after the bath, but I'm pretty sure that, underneath, the body is pumping out lots of heat despite that, given that I don't shiver etc.
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The numbness and stiffness went away when I continued to expand CT, over summer it was not as cold, this winter my numb stiff extremities returned, and haven't seemed to shift away-yet. I think it is because I did frequent CT 2-5x/day last winter. Until now I was only doing 1longer shower after my warm shower in the morning.
My hair doesn't seem to turn out nice without warm water, shaving my legs is also troublesome without it. I don't think that warm is a problem. I think it is good to tone and train nerves and vessels with both. Maybe frequency is key.
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As I have progressed with my RPD diet I have increasingly found that I cannot tolerate cooked, processed foods as well as before. In the last c. 4 years, I have found that I must not eat more than a small amount of cooked processed foods at a time or I will soon vomit them all out. Also, with some highly processed foods, I will find they become very hot within my body, which is a bad sign.
I can still tolerate a few cooked, processed foods like rice or spaghetti to some extent. Though I very rarely try them, these days.
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I am currently in a situation where I can buy half a dozen different types of raw muscle-meat from raw wild game but cannot get hold of the raw organ-meats thereof. So I have now taken to buying raw organ-meats from local supermarkets. In the region where I currently live, most cattle etc. are not as intensively farmed as in the US, so do eat some grass, but likely won't be 100% grassfed.
Tomorrow I will be eating raw spleen for the first time. For some strange reason no farmer was ever willing to provide that for me over the past decade.
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I love raw spleen,
Ive been ordering buffalo spleen from slankers,
its cheap and full of bloody good flavor
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I am currently in a situation where I can buy half a dozen different types of raw muscle-meat from raw wild game but cannot get hold of the raw organ-meats thereof. So I have now taken to buying raw organ-meats from local supermarkets. In the region where I currently live, most cattle etc. are not as intensively farmed as in the US, so do eat some grass, but likely won't be 100% grassfed.
Tomorrow I will be eating raw spleen for the first time. For some strange reason no farmer was ever willing to provide that for me over the past decade.
Why don't you order some grass fed organ-meat online? Whenever I go to the UK I order from Fordhall farm.
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Why don't you order some grass fed organ-meat online? Whenever I go to the UK I order from Fordhall farm.
I'm not in the UK at the moment, unfortunately.
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I'm annoyed. I'd been trying to find a source of raw honey, but, although they mostly have organic honey, none have had raw. I tried again recently at a local market. The first honey-stall-seller mocked my mentioning "raw" and "unpasteurised" honey when talking to his pal on the same stall, as though the very idea of "raw" honey was illogical and absurd. Another honey-seller assured me that his honey was all raw when I mentioned that I was only looking for raw honey to make mead. I bought a little of the latter's honey in desperation, but, in hindsight, there is no reason to believe he was telling the truth - after all, if his honey was genuinely raw, he would have labelled his jars raw that's for sure, as that would raise the price.
I'm annoyed by all this....
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I'm annoyed. I'd been trying to find a source of raw honey, but, although they mostly have organic honey, none have had raw. I tried again recently at a local market. The first honey-stall-seller mocked my mentioning "raw" and "unpasteurised" honey when talking to his pal on the same stall, as though the very idea of "raw" honey was illogical and absurd. Another honey-seller assured me that his honey was all raw when I mentioned that I ws only looking for raw honey to make mead. I bought a little of the latter's honey in desperation, but, in hindsight, there is no reason to believe he was telling the truth - after all, if his honey was genuinely raw, he would have labelled his jars raw that for sure, as that would raise the price.
I'm annoyed by all this....
Try to get them to sell you an entire "frame", which has several pounds of honeycomb in it. It also has pollen, propolis, and grubcomb as well, usually. That would definitely be raw.
I'm just trying to think of a good story you could give them to avoid their questions. Maybe tell them you have a sick pet who has an illness that only fresh raw honeycomb can cure.
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i will send you some raw honey, assuming the parcel delivery will allow it.
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i will send you some raw honey, assuming the parcel delivery will allow it.
Thanks for the offer, but I would far rather have another go on my own as I would feel like a cripple if I had to depend on others for my food-supply. Besides, there's the fun in the sheer effort of searching for the right source - sometimes it even leads to finding other types of raw foods(just recently, for example, my raw honey search led me to find the biggest raw prawn I have ever seen, something like a foot long.
I think CK has a point. Like with my own past habit of searching out farmers' markets, the key is to get to the source directly. Getting a whole "frame" might be an idea.
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Well, I have been cut off from Internet for most of a week so far. I will be back fully online hopefully on tuesday. It is really annoying that not only are internet service providers becoming very slow indeed in fixing simple technical problems(due to deliberately not employing enough staff) but Internet cafes are disappearing all over the City. I had to search the poorest parts of town for some time before I could find one.
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are there not public libraries with internet access? the public library is perhaps my favorite institution in the united states, they are so amazing!
also, are you fasting? do you do that often? if not what is the purpose or the cause for this fast?
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are there not public libraries with internet access? the public library is perhaps my favorite institution in the united states, they are so amazing!
Public libraries in Europe are usually quite bad with Internet access often being cut off or too slow etc.
also, are you fasting? do you do that often? if not what is the purpose or the cause for this fast?
I used to fast a lot more in the first 8 years of going raw. I used to practice Intermittent Fasting (IF) a lot but could only do the usual(1 large meal every 24 hours eaten within a 4-hour period, plus 2-3 whole-day fasts every fortnight) not the alternate-day fasting where one has to go without food for 48 hours. Then I started backsliding in recent years, but am now indulging in IF again. There is a lot of scientific data on IF:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-intermittent-fasting-might-help-you-live-longer-healthier-life (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-intermittent-fasting-might-help-you-live-longer-healthier-life)
Anyway, I always feel a bit calmer and more on the ball if I do IF. Constantly eating small meals throughout the day just makes me feel sluggish over time.
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I have become somewhat lackadaisical as regards past guidelines. Very foolish of me. I intend to do more IF(one large meal a day eaten within 4 hour period every 24 hours, plus 2_5 whole-day fasts every fortnight). I also intend to do more rigorous near-100% RPD standards. Up till now, I have accepted eating a few grains or pasteurised dairy products here and there, and I am increasingly worried about epigenetic etc. effects therefrom.
Fortunately, for me, I have no come across sources of raw lamb organ-meats(tongue, kidneys, liver and heart) and raw bone-marrow, which is nice, given that I have been denied such for 2.5 years up till now, for various reasons. Not sure re their 100% grassfed status, but, since I get raw wild game from the same source, I am certain that such raw organ-meats will at least come from only partially-grainfed animals.
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I recently finally came across a source of raw tongue. Hopefully, in a few weeks when I get back from holiday, I will be able to get hold of raw suet or raw marrow as well as the rest of the innards.
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Well, I'm incommunicado for a month until 31st May, in case people want to PM me or whatever. I may be able to check the Internet once a week for a couple of hours but that's all.
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No Jocks for a whole month!
Good work
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OK? I have decided to do GS's suggestion of an e-book on the raw, palaeolithic diet. Any suggestions welcome!
For the moment, I have designated certain chapters to:- the logic/common-sense of raw foodism/introduction; the harm done by cooking(the longest chapter); the history of raw foodism(weston-price etc.); tips on where to locate high quality raw foods. Not sure what other chapters I need to also include.
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Right after history, how about "Implementation of Raw Foodism in the Modern World" to discuss the continuum of styles, from HG/caveman style to modern recipes sans cooking?
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A good book in this diet realm usually has some life stories that are interesting. Even if they barely seem relevant to the food. People will continue reading through something entertaining, and people give up on textbook style.
By all means you should include the facts, alongside the stories.
I think people are turned off by the idea of having great recipes they love the taste of and not being able to eat them anymore. For example, I love Mexican food. Simply by using sea salt and raw dried Chile ground up with some lime and cilantro, you have a raw Mexican meat right there. But people don't think of using higher quality ingredients to do their own thing. A 'recipe' section or principles behind dish creation section would be welcome, imo.
Living a raw lifestyle, including things about food storage, food prep, high meat, eating out, finding roadkill, eating wild animals, foraging wild food, etc. But that may just be what eve suggested.
Personally, I have found all the stickies here to be packed full of awesome need to know stuff, search those and see what you can consolidate.
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The Dr. mentioned food storage under "living a raw lifestyle," but I want to elaborate on that. I would make a whole chapter on food storage. I would love to review the contents of the chapter (when you write it, of course).
Incidentally, I have both training and experience as a technical writer and editor. I can proofread well, and I am intimately familiar with both American (the right way) and British conventions of grammar.
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I agree, and on second thought, high meat should have its own chapter, as well as other fermented foods(plant and animal both), describing in the high meat chapter the history, science, experiences, risks and how to overcome them (airing), and what to expect. Then The other fermented foods chapter would have things like kimchee and pickles And. Worchestershire (sp?) Sauce, etc., at least touching on benefits seen throughout the world and how the taboo really isn't that taboo.
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I think I have just discovered a most convenient way to make high meat. The first batch will be ready in about another week and I will post pictures of the set up soon.
I have been using a large cooler and setting my jars in the bottom, and then just leaving a small container of ice setting next to the jars to keep things cool. I have been checking on the temp changing out the ice container as needed and airing it every day, and the meat has been aging most wonderfully.
This solves the issue I have had with the fridge I use to hang my lamb being too cold for high meat production. As well as the issue of stinking up my girlfriends fridge. I keep the cooler in the basement which out of the way and it stays fairly cool even after the container of ice melts..
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Well, within a week or so, I will have gotten my new computer(a PC) with internet-access and will likely no longer have computer faults and other problems to hinder me re writing that rawpaleodiet e-book etc.
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ok, what have i missed :)... you're in austria?
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Well, it makes it easier for me to ski, I suppose.
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Well, after my week's skiing holiday, I have had to endure a huge very weird constant coughing episode which has only recently started to be reduced a lot. I presume it is some weird detox since I have not been eating fully rawpalaeo given Christmas events and an inability to find decent raw foods in the ski resort.
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I now find that drinking coffee makes me more alert. I guess I am doing this instead of going raw, very low carb which otherwise does the trick. I mentioned elsewhere that due to social pressure I have had to up my intake of raw plant foods in my diet.
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Boss, coffee gets pretty bad eventually if you do it regularly for alertness...
For socials I always bring 2 types of herbal tea bags in my business bag. What I got now is taheebo / lapacho bark and some "longevity tea" made by my neighbor.
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I now find that drinking coffee makes me more alert. I guess I am doing this instead of going raw, very low carb which otherwise does the trick. I mentioned elsewhere that due to social pressure I have had to up my intake of raw plant foods in my diet.
What kind of plant foods have you started to include? What is the effect? Funny thing about traveling or social interactions they can sometimes (in the long run) cause me to incorporate wisdom into what I'm already doing. It shakes things up for me.
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I’ve never complied to social pressure and it didn’t harm my relationships at all. I still have and appreciate my old friends who eat cooked food, all my family eat cooked food and it has never been a problem between us. They all know that there’s no way to get me to eat something cooked and they don’t even try anymore.
Even when invited somewhere, I ask some raw food and/or I bring my own. If required, I explain that I’m experimenting a special diet and people are satisfied with that. If the are curious and ask questions, it sometimes launches an interesting discussion.
In The Causes and Prevention of Cancer (http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Ames_Causes.html), Bruce N. Ames
(Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center
University of California at Berkeley) states:
Cooking food also generates thousands of chemicals. There are over 1000 chemicals reported in a cup of coffee. Only 26 have been tested in animal cancer tests and more than half are rodent carcinogens; there are still a thousand chemicals left to test. The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.
What made you change your mind?
Tea and coffee have appalling numbers of carcinogenic chemicals in them. Coffee is the worst. I myself tried coffee and tea and can testify that they both fouled up my glandular system, coffee in particular.
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Hmm, that was a case of faulty memory. I did try coffee in my pre-rawpaleodiet days but I recall it as being the only thing at the time that helped bring me temporarily back to a sense of normality. The trouble, then, was that the coffee´s effect only lasted about half an hour. Nowadays, though, the coffee lasts longer in its effects.
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What kind of plant foods have you started to include? What is the effect? Funny thing about traveling or social interactions they can sometimes (in the long run) cause me to incorporate wisdom into what I'm already doing. It shakes things up for me.
Just lost of fruits and salads. I unfortunately eat way more than I need if I overindulge in raw plant foods.
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Boss, coffee gets pretty bad eventually if you do it regularly for alertness...
I usually drink it 3 or 4 days a week. I try not to drink it more than 3 days in a row. That way, I don't become addicted to it.
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I think I will stick to just 1 cup of coffee a day for now. I seem not to have benefitted from more than that, so far.
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I have recognised, over the years of being rawpalaeo, that my tolerance for cooked/processed foods has decreased a lot. if I eat more than small amounts of cooked/processed foods, I vomit the stuff out pretty quickly. I also get very hot in my throat afterwards. I cannot even eat dry pastry without needing lot sof water to wash the stuff down. This is a good thing but it means I have to be more careful to avoid situations where I cannot supply myself with regular shipments of raw animal foods. Also, fasting during times when I cannot access any decent raw food is good for me, too.
My one great sorrow is that I do not have enough cash around to do orthokeratology as that is a safe way to regain perfect eyesight.
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My one great sorrow is that I do not have enough cash around to do orthokeratology as that is a safe way to regain perfect eyesight.
Is the change permanent? An article that I read is a bit unclear on this.
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Is the change permanent? An article that I read is a bit unclear on this.
Technically, no. But all one has to do is wear the contact-lenses every night and one keeps one#s eyesight. if one forgets to wear them, then after c.2-3 nights the eyeballs change back to their previous setting. Also, if one#s eyes deteriorate due to old age I would imagine being forced to wear different contact-lenses at a stronger prescription.
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Interesting.
I met a guy who was about 65 or so who had had the usual age related visual deterioration. Long story but he went to a guy who did psychic surgery and the guy did something that resulted in him pulling something out from behind the eyeballs that resembled some sort of creature. Since then his eyes have been 20/20 for reading etc.
I know it sounds woowoo and I did not witness it, so it is hearsay, however the guy's vision was excellent.
I have a friend that is an acupuncturist and she said that some of her patients have seen things depart their body during acupuncture. Not everyone has the visual acuity to see these things but some PPL can apparently.
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I am off on holiday until the 22nd of September 2014.
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I came back and found, to my surprise, that a quality supermarket, Merkur, now routinely sells raw organ-meats like brains, kidneys, liver, heart and spleen. OK, so they come from pigs and cattle, hardly 100% grassfed, but Austria has an alleged reputation for its meats being much less grainfed than in the US, for example.
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I have noticed how much more alert and concentrated I am on a ketogenic diet or when I'm fasting. I might even eventually do 5-day fasts from Monday to Friday and then feast on the weekend.
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Just drop the fruit and keep eating the other plant foods, then you will be keto and have healthy gut microbes digesting all the resistant stuff in the raw veges to produce super goodies to keep your bowels well.
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After getting a membership to a new gym, I got a "free" consultation with a nutritionist with my card. After being questioned a lot, I felt I had to reveal what sort of diet I eat. The stuff this nutritionist spouted was akin to witchcraft. Needless to say, she was, more or less, against my raw diet and most of her "recommendations" involved cooked things like soup. I was horrified when she tried to get me to sign a form for 20 further lessons at 650 euros overall. I naturally declined.
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LOL. I can't imagine anyone giving you nutrition lessons! Do you know what she was trying to treat you for?
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LOL. I can't imagine anyone giving you nutrition lessons! Do you know what she was trying to treat you for?
Well, I have let myself go, weightwise. All my tests re blood-pressure etc. are far better than one would normally expect for an overweight person. It was a blatant attempt at custom. What annoyed me is that there seems to have been an alternative option of a free half hour with a personal trainer and these 2 "dietary consultations" apparently mean I am no longer eligible for the personal trainer option until a few months time in the future. At any rate, judging from past experiences, the only sensible way to lose weight is to go on frequent, regular 3 to 4 day water-fasts - of course, I cannot do that properly until after Christmas. During Xmas, I have to consume some cooked turkey and processed stuffing, christmas pudding, eggnog, various baked things like rumballs and almond-biscuits etc.
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What annoyed me is that there seems to have been an alternative option of a free half hour with a personal trainer and these 2 "dietary consultations" apparently mean I am no longer eligible for the personal trainer option until a few months time in the future.
Ah well, live and learn.
My daughter and I "share" a personal trainer at the gym. I work out with him twice a week working past an old shoulder injury (with internal scarring) in terms of strength and flexibility. An orthopedic surgeon told me that surgery was my only option, but my results say otherwise. I just remodeled the shelves in a large closet, working with my hands above my shoulder level with good strength in both arms, whereas one year ago, I was unable to lift my left arm higher than waist height.
My daughter sees him twice a month to refine and modify her daily workouts so she can stay sculpted and as strong as a Neanderthal.
IMO, a good trainer should listen to what you want to accomplish and decide if he or she knows how to help you before they grab your money. Most of them are too stupid to even know if they are effective trainers. That puts a huge burden on the client to figure out which ones are any good.
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Hmm, I have in the last few days experienced more frequent rushes to the toilet where I need to expel very liquid stools. It does not seem to matter what type of foods I eat, whether they are raw or cooked or whatever. It seems as though my gut bacteria are suddenly waging war on my food so as to ensure it does not come out the other end in a relatively solid form. No idea why this is, any thoughts?
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Do you have wifi on at home? Neighbors that have? How is your work environment?
non native EMF can really harm the gut.
My sisters ongoing gut issues did not resolve before she changed her environment.
From high EMF to low EMF.
From that day on she had no more loose stools (and it was worrying... no doctor could help)
Are you living in England right now? In a apartment... or in a city etc?
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I am living in a large flat in Vienna, Austria. I do not think that EMF is the issue as this has not happened before. Also, I think(?) one has to have other symptoms as well to be classified as EMF-sensitive.
Hmm, on the other hand, I first got this issue last week while in an appartment in Western Austria which does indeed have WIFI. Only been in Vienna since yesterday.
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I am living in a large flat in Vienna, Austria. I do not think that EMF is the issue as this has not happened before. Also, I think(?) one has to have other symptoms as well to be classified as EMF-sensitive.
Hmm, on the other hand, I first got this issue last week while in an appartment in Western Austria which does indeed have WIFI. Only been in Vienna since yesterday.
Didn't you have wifi in London?
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Didn't you have wifi in London?
No.
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I would get my handy little don croft terminator II zapper and zap my guts for 30 minutes 3x a day.
When I feel the parasites are gone.
I would replenish my gut bacteria with probiotics.
I also have my herbal dewormer from barefoot herbalist mh. 1 tablespoon in 1/2 cup of water every hour if it is an emergency to shut down the parasite / amoeba.
I suspect amoeba / protozoa.
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Well, everything sorted.
Incidentally, my former raw dairy allergy seems to have disappeared. From the age of two to 13 years ago, my raw dairy allergy exacerbated my CFS symptoms severely and pasteurised dairy ruined my health even more. Later on, raw(salted) cheese gave me constipation. Now I do not seem affected at all by raw dairy, though pasteurised dairy(such as pasteurised cheese) sits heavy in my stomach on the very rare occasions I have tried it, which is an indication. I have subsequently read online something that I foolishly missed before, namely that chronic fatigue syndrome causes new allergies to develop as an indirect result of it. I still contend that there are many people with allergies towards raw dairy in various forms, but, quite possibly, I am not one of those with a genetic incompatibility to raw dairy. That is to say, that, for all I know, I may be still be affected by raw dairy consumption but only in the long-term. As a result, I have restricted myself to buying the occasional litre of raw milk(guaranteed from 100% grassfed cows unlike in the UK!) and some occasional raw French cheeses from a local upmarket supermarket of all places.
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I'm glad to hear it, Tyler. Hopefully that dairy issue will never return.
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One of my failings is that in my rawpalaeodiet phase I would only rarely buy organic fruit and veg, but still make a huge effort to get hold of raw wild game and, as a last resort, raw 100% grassfed meats. Well, I recently went to a local market and drank a freshly squeezed orange juice made from organic oranges and it was a wonderful experience. I had had previous freshly squeezed oranges made from nonorganic oranges but they were nothing by comparison. So, I may as well buy more organic fruit from now on.
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Well, everything sorted.
Incidentally, my former raw dairy allergy seems to have disappeared. From the age of two to 13 years ago, my raw dairy allergy exacerbated my CFS symptoms severely and pasteurised dairy ruined my health even more. Later on, raw(salted) cheese gave me constipation. Now I do not seem affected at all by raw dairy, though pasteurised dairy(such as pasteurised cheese) sits heavy in my stomach on the very rare occasions I have tried it, which is an indication. I have subsequently read online something that I foolishly missed before, namely that chronic fatigue syndrome causes new allergies to develop as an indirect result of it. I still contend that there are many people with allergies towards raw dairy in various forms, but, quite possibly, I am not one of those with a genetic incompatibility to raw dairy. That is to say, that, for all I know, I may be still be affected by raw dairy consumption but only in the long-term. As a result, I have restricted myself to buying the occasional litre of raw milk(guaranteed from 100% grassfed cows unlike in the UK!) and some occasional raw French cheeses from a local upmarket supermarket of all places.
That is nice Tyler :)
I believe as we heal, we should be able to tolerate many things. Occasionally ;)
I eat raw animal foods with some little raw veggies and herbs thrown in most days 100 %
and I am super healthy! I had a few meatballs my boss (the vet) made for dinner as she offered me them to try and I did... I ate maybe 3 or 4... and they had even bread in them...lol and I was a little nervous how will this end, but I felt just fine... haha... isn't that great!
I never eat those on purpose for sure, but it feels good to be able to have them without bad reactions tho :)
I eat super clean every day and still I tolerated them just fine... ok I did not feel amazing from them like I do from my raw seafood and stuff but I got no issues either.
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Yes, I occasionally eat non-raw stuff. And it affects me much less than it used to. That is, my body manages to get rid of the toxins without me getting a hangover-like feeling like in the past.Not that I will ever go back to cooked foods as I get so much extra vitality from eating raw wild game.
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I am about to do something in Vienna called "The long night of the Churches" on May 29th. I am an atheist but love looking at the beauty of Baroque churches and the like, and while I am not fond of religion, I like to find out more about the history of religion, partly because I am mystified how it fooled so many people. Anyway, the Roman Catholic Church has put on a big effort this year for this festival so that every church in Austria has some big event going on that night, no doubt because so many are officially leaving the Church because they do not want to pay extra taxes to stay in it. Hitler imposed these taxes on the Roman Catholic Church in an attempt to dissuade Catholic Austrians from religion, and, after the war, the greedy Austrian RC church decided to keep those taxes in place.
Anyway, one of the more interesting events of this night is promised to be one where one is offered the chance to "eat like Jesus Christ"! I greatly fear that there will be no historical authenticity involved and that the products they offer will be adulterated with modern chemicals and overprocessed, but who knows.....?
Now, Jesus seems to have been against Jewish kosher laws,as, in the Bible, Jesus declares all foods to be "clean", but then again the food could still be kosher...
I am also trying to improve my one non-rawpalaeo vice- alcohol. I am considering making my own liqueurs as there are too many chemicals/food-colouring agents in most of the liqueurs I have consumed. If I buy wine at all, it will have to be organic and sulphite-free.
I have also suggested an amusing possibility to the local Natural History Museum. There is a "Long Night of the Museums" in October where people are allowed free entry to all Vienna museums during that evening. I sent them an e-mail suggesting that, in a similiar fashion to a previous attempt, they have stalls offering various tastings of foods that were/are eaten by hunter-gatherer tribes. I pointed out that only a few people would be willing to actually try sampling staples such as live insect grubs or seal blubber or tubers or whatever, so that they could save some money. No reply, but at least I tried.
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I am planning 4 experiments in the next 2 months:-
1) Making raw ice-cream with a blender. I have heard that using a blender means large ice-crystals are still left in the ice-cream but well we'll see
2) Infusing neutral alcohol or plain vodka with organic fruits to make liqueurs.
3) Making high-meat and making sure they are filled with live, crawling maggots. This is going to be very difficult for me, psychologically.
4) Building Lex's dehydrator and making lots of beef jerky. This will greatly reduce my dependence on non-rawpalaeo foods when hiking in the summer in the mountains. I tried storing raw liver and raw muscle-meats in my rucksack when mountain-hiking in previous years, but the smell was so obvious that it caused issues with others when in the mountain refuges, so that I could realistically only keep them for 3 days max.
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# 3 would be outside my comfort zone. I know it's all in my head, but.....
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# 3 would be outside my comfort zone. I know it's all in my head, but.....
I tried once leaving meat out on a window-sill to age and the flies laid a number of eggs on the pieces. I was able with great difficulty to eat the pieces and found they tasted disgusting, despite the fact that the eggs were minute and likely in actual fact quite tasteless. Amazing how simple psychological pressure can influence taste.
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I am now in a position to buy raw wild game plus some of the raw innards from local wild game wholesalers, and at astoundingly cheaper prices than ever before. I may well start buying half or a whole deer carcass if it has been pre-prepared to some extent, as I might be able to pay the equivalent of only 4 euros a kilo this way.
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I am going to start the beef jerky experiment in a few days. I will eventually do the raw ice-cream experiment in a month or so, as well as the high-meat/maggots experiment.
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I have done beef jerky and raw ice cream... they are nice :) but I have not had them for long as I am on a seafood trip now...lol and it is one awesome trip! But for enjoyment raw ice cream and jerky are great, like candy for sure :)
maggot meat I have not tried and probably want.... hehe..
I just had a load of high lamb hears for dinner..... man was it good....mmmm seriously delicious! A real Roquefort taste!
I do well with organic wine if I do not drink too much, and have it before 5 PM... otherwise it might disturb my sleep.... I do not drink any other alcoholic beverages at all. If I am really sinful I can do some Port wine... I love the taste even if it is sweet but a great brand is often less sweet but it is a real cheat for sure!
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You can do raw ice cream without cream if you cant get raw cream, with only egg yolks whipped up with raw honey + berries or chocolate or what taste you prefer.. it is nice too :)
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Interesting.
I find ordinary wine or port/sherry to be unpleasant in taste and the aftereffects aren't too pleasant. I can easily handle organic sulphite-free wine so I must be particularly susceptible to sulphites since going rawpalaeo.
I am now dehydrating my meats. Another c.2.5 days before they should be finished.
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Jerky dipped in raw grass fed butter is heavenly :)
I just thought about making be some raw dried heart to take with me on the trip to the USA.... I guess that is allowed!
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Well, my teeth are sore from all the chewing I needed to do of the jerky.
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Well, my teeth are sore from all the chewing I needed to do of the jerky.
Get a sharp pair of scissors (I sometimes use electrician's scissors) to cut it into swallowable chunks. Then you don't have to chew as much.
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Get a sharp pair of scissors (I sometimes use electrician's scissors) to cut it into swallowable chunks. Then you don't have to chew as much.
Makes sense. Given Inger's suggestion, rolling jerky in some raw fat might also help.
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I have had that too Tyler... sore teeth from chewing jerky...lol Your teeth will get used to it eventually ;)
Or you can grind it and make pemmican.... use raw coconut oil or butter for fat.
That said... I do believe it is healthier to eat your meat fresh or rotten ;)
But jerky is great emergency food, and it tastes awesome for sure! Like candy lol
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Hmm, if raw butter were smeared into the raw jerky would that still allow the jerky to last for a year or ought one to just add raw butter to the jerky prior to eating it? Given past experiences, I will never dare touch raw coconut oil ever again.
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My friend from Tibet told me that they used to keep butter for a long time. He said that 20 year old butter (Yak) was considered a delicacy.
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I'm off on holiday. Back in a fortnight or so.
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Just had a bright idea. I sent an e-mail to NASA(sadly, the "send suggestions to NASA" page did not work, so I had to send it to NASA via general enquiries. Basically, I made 2 suggestions:-
1) Send live small animals up into space(ones with prolific breeding capacity), have them put into a small transverse centrifuge so as to simulate 1 Earth Gravity(1G). Do the same with plants(eating sprouts would be fine).
2) Eat raw animal foods and raw plant foods. I gave several justifications such as that, while there is little scientific data supporting raw food consumption due to foolish biases, there is a huge amount of scientifically validated data on the harm done by cooked food consumption.The clincher was a study showing that bone-loss occurs at a greater rate in tandem with the amounts of advanced glycation end products(AGEs) in the bones and body,(AGEs are one of the 7 or so types of heat-creates toxins found in cooked foods so far). The idea being that an astronaut who had been on a 100% RVAF diet for a few years beforehand, and then in space,would lose bone-mass at a slower rate than astronauts on less healthier diets.
I also recommended that a NASA biologist read this rather than any NASA nutritionist as I seriously doubt that a nutritionist/dietician could possibly be unbiased re these suggestions.
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I have decided to try raising magic mushrooms as well as make my own liqueurs(from organic fruit). The brainwave entrainment processes seem to be having a good effect on me so far.
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Whatt, Is that legal over there?
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Have you been experimenting wih psilocybin Tyler? I'd love to hear your experience. I am 100% convinced mushrooms are the best medicines for our minds and planet at this time.
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Have you been experimenting wih psilocybin Tyler? I'd love to hear your experience. I am 100% convinced mushrooms are the best medicines for our minds and planet at this time.
Not yet. I need another c. 2 weeks for the mushrooms to grow enough to be sampled. I am expecting results as studies have shown several health benefits from magic mushrooms. I am not taking psylocybin neat, just as part of magic mushrooms, of course.
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did you grow them yourself from spores? how much do you plan to take?
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did you grow them yourself from spores? how much do you plan to take?
I am not sure of amounts. I just recently got a grow kit for a certain mushroom species(golden teachers?) with the spores already inserted therein, takes another 10-12 days to appear, apparently. I will start with a moderate dose and see how it goes. I have read online that some people can be highly reactive to even tiny doses of MMs, while others are immune to very large doses.
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Are you having success with the kit? How do you plan to dose yourself? SWIM would take 3 grams dried to get a decent feel of it, take them somewhere secluded in nature when you have a day to relax and explore the experience. 5 grams to get the full experience. Majority of the people who I know who have used mushrooms find the experience to be totally beneficial and uplifting, even if there are moments of anxiety, it's always worth it .
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Fresh is always best if available, though fresh often poses an issue when it comes to dosing, and you may want to be careful not to over do it and have an Iguana like experience...
"Golden teachers" are a fairly mild strain so the average recommendations should apply.
I found this Dosage calculation, which may have some helpful information.
http://www.shroomery.org/6257/Magic-Mushroom-Dosage-Calculator (http://www.shroomery.org/6257/Magic-Mushroom-Dosage-Calculator)
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that calculator is kind of pointless, you cant judge your mushrooms potency or how much you think they have deteriorated in quality until you have tried enough of both wet and dry to trip and compare. how dark the bruise tends to be a good indicator of potency, drying helps because there can be some difference in how big they get due to how much moisture they are able to obtain when they are growing, but that doesnt mean they will be more potent. its also interesting to see how much they shrink when dried. just use a fan, like the jerky dehydrator method, to dry them at super low heat for a few days. they will get cracker dry and then just store them in a jar with a tea bag full of dried salt, bake the salt in the stove to make sure its dry and able to absorb any extra moisture.
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Hmm, in Austria magic mushrooms are legal in all respects unless you a) try to refine the psylocybin or b) dry them. I suppose I could use my dehydrator to dry the magic mushrooms, thus not needing any salt and therefore could store my yields for much longer periods. Idiotic that Germany and the UK, among others, ban magic mushrooms completely.
I do not have a device for measuring weight in grams. I looked online and the average mushroom seems to be c.39g. The website SB gave indicated a sample size of 12.3g needed for a "level 2" trip, which seems the best type of trip to have. That would be c. a third of a mushroom. On the other hand, other websites claim that even 1g of fresh magic mushroom is way more than enough.
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Old fashioned Postal scales are reasonably cheap http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-metal-hand-scale.html?gclid=CKT16dvvvMcCFc0WHwod6UsN1A (http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-metal-hand-scale.html?gclid=CKT16dvvvMcCFc0WHwod6UsN1A)
Potency will vary depending on the strain, and the golden teacher is of average strength, so I would suggest the 12.3 grams would be a safe bet for the trial run.
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1 gram of fresh mushrooms is such a small amount it wont have any effects. 12 grams fresh might depending on potency. just dry them with no heat and you will loose virtually none of the potency. i think the only reason people think the potency is lost when drying is that, upon ingestion, they fail to chew the mushrooms thoroughly, getting them rehydrated with saliva and really ground into oblivion with the teeth so that the cells are cracked open and psilocybin is available. also eating them on an empty stomach and doing some type of physical activity after you have ingested them, like going on a nice hike, helps your body to absorb the maximum amount of psilocybin. if you have mushrooms grow that are 12.3gx3 in weight please let me know, those would be monsters. also, go ahead an invest in a small grams scale, they are inexpensive and invalueable if you are trying to figure out an accurate dose...https://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&es_sm=93&tbm=shop&btnG=Search&q=small+grams+scale (https://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&es_sm=93&tbm=shop&btnG=Search&q=small+grams+scale)
the potency of golden teachers v other strains really depends on the grower, most any strain you get nowadays is a clone of a clone of a clone cultivated from agar trays and long removed from its origin and chosen for different qualities, nowadays it seems people choose more for aesthetics and weight than potency(imagine that), it also depends on substraight and growing conditions. you wont know how to judge potency until you have tried different varieties etc...and some have varying effects and cause strong effects in certain ways others dont and vice versa. anyway there is definitely nothing to fear, and i dont think you can ever do too many ;) i have rarely heard of a miserable experience, and most people who had them had really off expectations in the first place and werent in a mental place to fully appreciate the experience as they could have.
also Kalo, arent you in a region where psilocybin mushrooms grow wild?
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Is it my hallucination, or have you mellowed out with age? Looking forward to reading about your shroomventure.
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Mushrooms will hopefully grow in a week or so(?).
In the meantime, I am going raw zero-carb for 3 week periods interspersed with tiny amounts of raw carbs inbetween. I used to love those RZC experiments for the first 3 weeks as they made my brain better able to concentrate etc. I also ought to slim down. I have read that eating carbs, however raw, leads to lots of water-retention and so causes weight-gain.
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The brainwave entrainment I have been doing seems remarkably effective. I am better able to study etc. The magic mushrooms do not seem to be getting anywhere, though I gather I may have miscalculated big time as to when they start growing properly.
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My recent raw milk foray seems to have been a disaster, after all. Loose stools, and a very painful, inflamed anus coupled with sudden urges to go straight to the toilet. A pity, the stuff is truly addictive, and obviously, while it did not affect me until now, it does seem to have a long-term nasty effect on me. Ah well, I will have to add some raw seafood to make up for the lack.
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How much do you drink before you reach this point?
I am about four days into a raw milk phase, and have gone through about a gallon, so far there are not any issues. I feel a little different mentally, like the milk sugars and opioids are having some effect, usually the stomach issues typically take about a week of daily consumption to appear.
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How much are you drinking per day sabertooth? Are you eating other foods as well? What do you consider symptoms of opioids?
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How much are you drinking per day sabertooth? Are you eating other foods as well?
He's 4 days in, and it's 4 quarts to a gallon. He's got to be eating other stuff. I mean, think about who we're talking about, the uber-carnivore.
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How much do you drink before you reach this point?
I am about four days into a raw milk phase, and have gone through about a gallon, so far there are not any issues. I feel a little different mentally, like the milk sugars and opioids are having some effect, usually the stomach issues typically take about a week of daily consumption to appear.
I was drinking c. 4-6 litres of raw (100% grassfed) milk a week for much( a 1/3 to 0.5?) of the last 6 months. I did have similiar experiences some months ago, but had ignored them at the time. Oh, and I had also had occasional raw cheeses c. 3 times a months over the last year.
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How much are you drinking per day sabertooth? Are you eating other foods as well? What do you consider symptoms of opioids?
About a Quart a day. I hadn't had any milk other than some sheep colostrum and a small cup of goats milk for months, but something to do with the weather change of some other factor has got me craving it. Im still eating a lot of meat and fat, but no veggies. Some of my milk issues seems to be with mixing meat, milk and salads, so I'm trying to cut our veggies this time to see what happens. So far after 4 days my bowels are working fine and I dont have the bloating I've had in the past.
Ive never experienced hard core opiod use, but what I have noticed the first couple days was an over all relaxed feeling, but still had good energy, followed by a difference in mindset which is difficult to explain. Then after a few hours I begin to crave more. It also increased my hunger and I have been eating more than usual.
During past experiments I've gone about two weeks, and manage to eat constantly and gain a few befor my gut gets fouled up and I ended up fasting and coming off the milk until reaching equilibrium again. It seems like no matter what I do my body does everything it can to keep me at about 170 pounds.
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This brainwave entrainment thing is working extremely well. I feel more able to change my state such as suddenly becoming more energetic, or more relaxed etc., as applicable.
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Have you evolved beyond the lesser beings yet?
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Have you evolved beyond the lesser beings yet?
Hardly. I know that some of the brainwave entrainment propaganda is absurd, promising a longer life, increased genius-like abilities and other nonsense, but I stuck to neuroprogrammer 3 as they provided stronger studies to back up their claims and made it clear what brainwave entrainment can and cannot do. It has great reviews too.
My interest in all this is in biofeedback. Like the Wim Hof you recently mentioned, I think it would be cool to have total control over my heartbeat or metabolic-rate or be able to control what levels of hormones are in my blood at any time etc.
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Brainwave entrainment is a waste of time of money as far as I am concerned. Meditation is safer and free. I tried the holosync program before and the only thing it did for me is increase my anxiety to epic proportions.
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Brainwave entrainment is a waste of time of money as far as I am concerned. Meditation is safer and free. I tried the holosync program before and the only thing it did for me is increase my anxiety to epic proportions.
I deliberately avoided the holosync program as various online reviews proclaimed its shortcomings and complained about the huge costs involved. I mean, paying out 1000s of dollars and only expecting (some) results after 6 months or more, is not a good idea. Neuroprogrammer 3 costs only 90 dollars for the better ultimate version; adding another 220 dollars for the only 2 cheap biofeedback devices is nice but not apparently necessary as long as one varies the sessions one does. The stuff is amazing. Before, I would have to fast a whole day in order to get into a particular state or drink coffee or whatever or do lots of exercise or whatever. Now, I just use the background brainwave entrainment sounds for some of the time while reading online or altering some program or whatever.
Meditation never worked for me, even after I became healthy as a result of this diet. I do not seem able to calm down enough or something for that. I also do not seem able to get properly into a decent trance when trying hypnosis or self-hypnosis re autogenic training.
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I am now looking into something new. I am sick and tired of relying on sellers' promises re organic status and tired of buying raw wild game at high cost(well, OK, Austrian wild game can be found at cheaper prices than domestic(partially-grainfed) beef if one bothers to look around a bit, but I am, in the next few months, seriously considering making a deal with local, regular hunters who will provide me with a whole deer-carcass etc., all already more or less cut up, minus head and bowels/intestines, and at half or two-thirds the price I usually buy it at. Trouble is that unlike savvy Americans, Europeans usually do not go in for large enough fridges and freezers.Well, I do have a cellar and other possibilities.
I am also looking into "urban organic gardening". How successful it mmay be remains to be seen. I don't have a garden, living in a flat as I do-(only rooftop flats can have a small garden, here). So, either it's going to involve lots of large buckets of plants near my windows, or I will have to rent a garden-plot somewhere nearby, if that is even possible.
The whole reason for this is that I occasionally read about people who have become self-sufficient in virtually every possible way, as regards dependence on electricity or food or whatever. Also, there is not much point in favouring individualist-anarchism when one is not 100% self-sufficient, and I would rather spend my money on high-tech gadgets than on food.
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One of my last new gimmicks was buying neuroprogrammer 3 a brainwave entrainment for windows software. It has been highly effective. I can choose from a huge number of sessions from insomnia-cures to energising-sessions to pre-athletic performance tracks and so on and on. I have never had a problem with insomnia since going rawpalaeo and cutting out the dairy but being able to suddenly wake-up/energise myself after listening to a few minutes of this brainwave entrainment stuff is amazing. I have also bough this brainspotting 2-cd set which is for enhancing the 2 brain hemispheres and relaxation. I'll see how that works. I will try to order some magic mushrooms in a few months, maybe, to see what that does, as I need a boost in creativity/originality. It always did seem puritanical to avoid such natural drugs after going rawpalaeo. My reason for avoiding such before, was that in my pre-rawpalaeodiet phase, I felt so often stoned out of my skull due to the vast amounts of excess hormones flooding my brain and body and all the endorphins my body sent out in order to try and kill the pain, that I sort of realised that I would not be able to get any benefit from taking additional drugs into my system at the time. Now, it should not be an issue.
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A recent thought on the subject of dairy and ethnicity:- Supposedly, Scandivians(ie primarily tall, thin, narrow-skulled pale Nordics) are the most immune to dairy problems, whether raw or pasteurised. Now, I am derived from a father who was very "Upper Palaeolithic" in terms of appearance etc. with a little Nordic and Mediterranean and Alpine as well in his genes/appearance, with my mother being mostly "Mediterranean" in appearance, but with parents who both fitted the tall, thin, pale Nordic model in appearance. My appearance happens to be generally mostly "Cro-Magnon"/"Upper-Palaeolithic, as in:-
http://siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_38/1/6/9/item_1697/information_items_1697.jpg (http://siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_38/1/6/9/item_1697/information_items_1697.jpg)
Err, without the beard in the picture etc. The point being that those tall Caucasians with mesomorphic bodies and wide, large skulls should likely avoid dairy and grains products like the plague, unlike other Caucasian types. Those who are short and squat or short and fat or tall and thin Caucasians probably have far less to worry about in this regard.
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I have been expanding my brainwave entrainment ideas. After buying neuroprogrammer 3 I am now buying an even better product from the same people, brain.fm. It costs 149 dollars for a lifetime membership with many more tracks soon to come.It is absolutely amazing in its effect. I used the concentrated focus option and felt wired up for ages afterwards. The point is we humans all go in for achieving higher states through various methods. Here is a wonderful gimmick that achieves that with ease after just 30 minutes 3 times a day for a short period. Anyway I mention this as a useful, cheapish option for those with conditions that an rpd diet might not be able to address.
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In recent times, while my diet has been almost wholly rawpalaeo with the exception of some dinners here and there, I have let standards go down. In the UK, I would at least buy some of my raw plant foods from organic farmers' markets or organic supermarkets. Here, in Austria, I have let that slide. Just prior to going rawpalaeo, years ago, I would go in for cultivating various sprouts such as watercress. I loved the stuff at the time, but since it just gave me lots of energy but did not actually solve my health-problems I soon gave it up once my health soon after recovering on the RPD diet. Anyway, I have decided to go in for eating sprouts for most of my raw plant food intake. It works out cheaper and is also higher in food-quality.
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am off on hols. PMs cannot be replied to until c.2 weeks from now.