I didn't realize how much of oyster habitat had been destroyed until I heard a radio report tonight that said that 85% of the world's oyster beds have been destroyed. There are efforts to restore habitat, but I wonder if it's ethical to eat wild oysters at this point?


Man-Made Reef May Help Stem Oysters' Decline
By Amy Quinton on Wednesday, July 1, 2009.
http://www.nhpr.org/node/25835

"A new report finds that New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary has lost more than 90 percent of its oyster reefs over the last 15 years.

Pollution, disease, and over-harvesting have all played a part."


Aquaculture FAQ - Why are oysters considered a keystone species?
Page Updated on November 27, 2009
http://www.deseagrant.org/outreach/aquaculture-faq-why-are-oysters-considered-keystone-species

"Filter-feeding bivalve molluscs are considered to be a "keystone species" because of the important ecological services they provide to maintain or improve water quality and clarity, and cycle nutrients between the water column and bottom dwelling species. The diversity and abundance of molluscan shellfish populations are often cited as indicators of the environmental quality and overall health of coastal ecosystems."


Mussels And Oysters Endangered By The Acidification Of The Oceans
By News Staff | March 16th 2007 02:00 AM


Should the Eastern Oyster be on the Endangered Species List? It's Worth Considering
Monday, July 25, 2005
http://thissphere.blogspot.com/2005/07/should-eastern-oyster-be-on-endangered.html

Yes, they were 11% larger than ours. Though there are other explanations for the bigger size of their brains such as the cold-climate/intelligence theory or simple evolution(that is, our body size decreased after that along with the brain-size, and some people claim brain-size/body ratio is more of a sign of intelligence than large brains per se(though that is also disputed).

What is interesting is that the Inuit have the largest skulls,. reportedly, of all humans(though again that isn't necessarily a sign of greater intelligence).

Wow! Why didn't you mention this before, Tyler? This is huge. I found a reference online indicating that the largest craniums were found among the Greenland Inuit, who happened to have the highest intake of animal foods ever measured among living peoples on the planet (99%). So adult Cro Magnons, Neanderthals (http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2008/09/neanderthal.html), and Greenland Inuit all had cranial capacities larger than adult Neolithic humans. Do the scientists really expect us to believe that's just coincidence?

Another interesting fact is that Neanderthal skulls are no larger than Neolithic brains at birth--but they grew larger than Neolithic brains by adulthood. I wonder if it was the same with Greenland Inuit? If so, it could suggest an environmental effect (such as diet), rather than a purely genetic one.

Here's the confirming reference I found. Granted, it's a fiction book, but it appears to treat this part as historical:

"The French cranium measurers ran into serious problems in Greenland. They were working from the theory that there was a linear relation between a person's intelligence and the size of his skull. They discovered that the [Inuit] Greenlanders, whom they regarded as a transitional form of ape, had the largest skulls in the world." --Peter Hoeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow, pp. 17-18

Why didn't I ever hear about this in school or from the media? I was taught in college that Caucasians were found to have the largest craniums and brains and that racist scientists used this as proof of mental superiority, but that brain size was really not that important after all. I believed that standard line at the time. Not until decades later do I learn that this was apparently false--that the Inuit actually have the largest craniums. Astonishing, but then again, not surprising.

I was awoken to a BBC program this morning that was yet another a diatribe against meat eating (public radio seems to broadcast one at least every couple of weeks). The latest claim of fanatical vegans/vegetarians who expressed frustration that societies haven't abandoned eating meat is that the reason people eat meat is an ideology they coined a term for: carnism. They claim that meat eating isn't natural for humans and has to be instilled in them through this artificial ideology. This ridiculous claim denies the animal nature of humans. It ignores the 2.5 million plus year history of meat eating among humans and the fact that chimps, tarsiers, monkeys and even gorillas also enjoy certain non-vegan foods. Are we supposed to believe that these fellow primates have also been conditioned by this ideology of carnism?

One of the leading proponents of this view is the author of a recently published book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, Melanie Joy PhD. Notice that she has a greasy, shiny face you can see towards the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3CsceN26_E
I used to have the same thing when I ate significant amounts of plant foods and I have also seen this improve in someone else who switched to a more meat-heavy Paleo diet.

Dr. Eades invented a cooker that uses the low-and-slow "sous vide" method of cooking (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/food-porn/diy-sous-vide/).

I also recall reading Dr. Cordain advocate a low-and-slow method of cooking, though I can't find the reference.

I don't recall them getting into the details much of what the health reasons for this style of cooking would be, but perhaps they recognize that high-heat cooking produces toxic Maillard products and consider it a concern?

Bob Marley's Cause of Death: Idiopathic (of unknown underlying cause) Acral Lentiginous Melanoma

This topic was raised in Lex's journal. It happens to be one I've investigated, being a fan of Bob Marley's music since the mid '70s, but I'm creating a separate thread on it as I don't want to put nonrelevant stuff in Lex's journal. There are some interesting dietary aspects of Bob's story. I don't know how much if at all they relate to his cancer, but in my research I have found that many "idiopathic" diseases are eventually found to have a dietary connection. Instead of proposing any connections, though, I'll let people decide for themselves. Besides, I'm sure Tyler will take me to task if I propose that Bob's diet was directly related to his cancer.

Bob's wife Rita said Bob became a Rastafari in early 1966 at the age of 21 and "altered his diet" (One Faith: Rita on Rastafari, http://web.bobmarley.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080221&contentid=93844). The Rastafari diet is often based on the diet of Genesis, Leviticus and Deuteronomy (excluding shellfish and pork and other foods, with most reportedly also excluding red meat despite no Biblical prohibition). Some Rastafari take the diet further, however, excluding all meats. At some point Bob appears to have been one of these, for he allegedly said "I-man say don't make Jah body a graveyard for de dead animals!" ("Bob Marley," International Vegetarian Union, http://www.ivu.org/people/music/marley.html).

After Bob injured his toe playing football in 1977 and ignored a doctor's advice to stay off it, the toe didn't heal properly, so he had it checked out a second time. This time it was found that Bob had idiopathic acral lentiginous melanoma, a form not found to be related to sunshine or cigarettes that is the most common form of melanoma in black people, and the physician recommended that Bob have the toe amputated. Instead, Bob opted to have a portion of the toe removed by Dr. William Bacon at Cedars--a riskier option. Dr. Bacon recommended that Bob start eating meat again, and Bob's health recovered. So Bob may have gone as much as 11 years eating little or no meats and plentiful plant foods.

Later on, Bob collapsed while jogging. Bob's personal physician, Dr. Frazier, at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, said he had suffered a stroke and found a malignant brain tumor--the cancer had spread. The doctors at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami referred him to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Mahatten. When it appeared that chemotherapy was killing Bob, Bob's main physician at Sloan-Kettering, Dr. Frazier, referred him to the quack German doctor, Josef Issels. Frazier had heard that Issels cured some cancer patients and figured that since Bob was going to die anyway, it was worth a shot.

Bob got somewhat better once chemotherapy treatment was stopped, but then he worsened again while on Issels' quack lacto-vegetarian diet and treatments. Bob eventually refused to eat or drink and his weight dropped to 70 pounds. Dr. Issels operated on his stomach tumor, but it didn't help and Issels gave up hope that his controversial treatments would help Bob and told Bob that he would die within a couple weeks. Bob was returned to Cedars of Lebanon, where he soon died.

Main sources:

Bob Marley: a biography, by David Vlado Moskowitz
Ital, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ital
Acral Lentiginous Melanoma, http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/acral_lentiginous_melanoma/causes.htm

Originally posted at http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/welcoming-commitee/unavailable-grass-fed-meat/msg21512/#msg21512:
Well, the odd thing to me is how we always utilize science and measurements when deciding whether something is harmful or not. It doesn't feel intuitive to look into the amount of sugar (with no mention of what kind of sugar) and conclude that it has to be harmful. Does eating 15 bananas in a day have a harmful effect on blood sugar? Does it causes energy highs and lows? Is it bad for you in combination with high fat intake or simply in and of itself? Right now all I get is contradictions depending on which camp you ask the questions to. That Steve Pavlina guy was testing his blood sugar throughout the 30 day vegan diet and it all played out normal. ....

One thing you could do, if you don't mind the expense, is buy a glucose meter (most come with a sample of test strips) and do some of your own blood sugar testing, instead of relying solely on Pavlina's example.

I had done a fair amount of research on bananas, because I was surprised to find out recently that they were inedible during the Stone Age, and that got me investigating. Your questions got me doing some additional research. Here are some of my findings:

"Wild bananas are native to SE Asia, and produce inedible fruit with numerous seeds but little pulp" and bananas made edible by domestication were not eaten by Westerners until the 15th and 16th centuries when "Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa" (sources: "Banana - Trade, Cultivation, Pests and diseases, Effects of banana diseases in East Africa, Fibre, Popular culture," http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/2306/banana.html and "Wild Bananas," La Gringa's Blogicito, Tuesday, November 14, 2006, http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/2006/11/wild-bananas.html). Until the 19th century, even domesticated cultivars of bananas had to be cooked to be made edible:

"The yellow sweet banana is a mutant strain of the cooking banana, discovered in 1836 by Jamaican Jean Francois Poujot, who found one of the banana trees on his plantation was bearing yellow fruit rather than green or red. Upon tasting the new discovery, he found it to be sweet in its raw state, without the need for cooking" ("Banana History: Cultivation of bananas pre-dates that of rice," Peggy Trowbridge Filippone, http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/bananahistory.htm).

Americans did not start eating large quantities of bananas until fruit conglomerates like United Fruit Company began shipping large quantities in the late nineteenth century ("United Fruit Company," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Early_history). United Fruit is now Chiquita, which continues United Fruit's practice of monoculture agriculture of a single cultivar (the Cavendish yellow banana), made possible by heavy chemical use, that eventually led to the demise of the earlier Gros Michael variety and which is predicted to end with the demise of the Cavendish within the next 10-20 years ("Bananas Are Dying, Killed by Corporate Monoculture," Heidi Stevenson, 2 June 2008, http://www.naturalnews.com/023339_banana_bananas_disease.html and "Banana," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana). So even if you are young and love yellow Cavendish bananas and think they are healthy, you will likely not be eating them 20 years from now and 30BananasADay.com has a limited future (unless there is a switch in focus to other varieties than the Cavendish bananas in the site logo).

Most of the bananas that grow wild in SE Asia today are apparently descendents of past domesticated cultivars. For example, many wild bananas grow in the Philippines, but they are not native to that nation. Since wild bananas are inedible, the earliest uses might have been the uses that wild bananas are put to today: using the seeds to make necklaces, the leaves for roofing materials, umbrellas and plates, the flowers for decoration, and the starch to brew alcoholic beverages (The Encyclopedia of Fruit & Nuts, by Jules Janick, Robert E. Paull, p. 514). It's my guess that that latter use is what spurred the first spreading by humans of wild bananas beyond their native land of New Guinea.

I do not know a single scientist who thinks that the few centuries that Europeans have been eating bananas, or the less than two centuries that Americans have been eating them is enough time to adapt biologically to a food. So the question is, are bananas similar enough to other fruits that we could be biologically pre-adapted to eat them without long-term harm, despite most of the world not having consumed them regularly until the 19th century? I don't know.

I do know that despite bananas containing loads of potassium I continued to get potassium-deficiency cramps while I was eating plenty of them, whereas the cramps rapidly declined when I cut out carbs and started eating raw red meats regularly (and only return if I go too long without eating raw red meat)--despite the fact that red meat contains lower levels of potassium. So either the potassium in red meat is more bioavailable to me than that in bananas, or the carbs in any food, like bananas, reduce the bioavailability to me of nutrients like potassium, or both. So for me bananas are not a prime food choice for at least three reasons. As always, YMMV.

Another interesting piece of evidence regarding diets heavy in fruits like bananas is the fact that the 30bananasaday and other raw vegan forums seem to be filled with complaints of poor health, cravings and detoxes, whereas this forum seems to have more reports of health benefits than health complaints (though we do have some of the latter). Yet when people like you report at a raw vegan forum having problems with a raw vegan diet, they tend to get dismissed or excuses made. Have you noticed this when comparing 30bananasaday to this RPD forum?

"In my opinion, vitamins A, D and K2 are among the very few micronutrients worth worrying about in your diet. Hunter-gatherers didn't have multivitamins, they had nutrient-dense animal foods." - Stephan Guyenet, Ph.D. in neurobiology

My dental health has improved greatly, but could stand some additional improvement, as I'm still getting some dental plaque and mild gum bleeding. According to several sources, vitamins A, D3 and K2 (they're not all literally vitamins, but I'm not concerned about semantics) are important to dental health (apparently especially in combination), and they're not easy to get even on an RPD diet, especially with sunlight rare where I live. The animal sources are supposed to be the best, according to my sources, and I'm a carnivore (though not obligate, obviously), so I'm only interested in animal sources at this time. I'm currently getting A and D3 from the cod liver oil supplements I'm using up as well as free range chicken liver, grassfed beef liver, egg yolks, some wild fish and occasional wild shellfish (wild clams are sometimes available--the mussels and oysters available locally are not wild, so I'm not big on those, and even the farmed oysters are rarely available). In the future I could use the fermented raw cod liver oil, but I want to explore all options. Butter oil provides K2, but I'd rather avoid dairy products if I can.

Anyone have any other sources to add to these below?

Good sources of vitamin D3:
sunlight
fish liver (and cod liver oil)
saltwater fish (especially halibut and cod) liver oil and fish fat (oil) in fatty fish like sardines, salmon, herring; and the fatty belly part of tuna (called 'toro,' 'chu-toro,' or 'o-toro' in Japanese)
Small amounts in: egg yolks, beef liver

Good sources of the MK4 version of Vitamin K2:
egg yolks, shellfish, goose leg, chicken liver, chicken meat, grassfed ground beef, grassfed beef liver

Good sources of Vitamin A:
egg yolks, liver

It's interesting how liver and egg yolks supply some of all three nutrients.

Accumulating evidence has been reviving the man-the-hunter theory. The latest evidence from the Qesem Cave may be the final nail in the coffin of the man-the-hunted/scavenger theory. While scavenging was part of the overall survival strategy of hominids, hunting and butchering were clearly even more important to human survival and evolution. Despite the protestations of vegetarians/vegans, Stone Age humans clearly ate more than a smidgen of meat:

"Archaeologists have found the 200,000-year-old leftovers from ancient humans' meals, and an analysis of cut marks on the animal bones reveal that Paleolithic people ate very differently than we do today. The researchers were digging around in Israel's Qesem Cave, an early human hideout discovered east of Tel Aviv nine years ago during highway construction, when they found the remnants of hunted meals from 200,000 to 400,000 years ago. Scratches and dents in the animal bones show that, rather than letting a specialized butcher or cook prepare the meat for everyone to eat, these cavemen's feasts were more like a free-for-all. "We believe this reflects a different way of butchering and sharing. More than one person was doing the job, and it fits our expectations of a less formal structure of cooperation," one researcher says. "The major point here is that around 200,000 years ago or before, there was a change in behavior. What does it mean? Time and further excavations may tell." The findings have already put to rest at least one controversy — they seem to prove that Paleolithic people were hunters, damaging earlier theories that they were still scavenging and gathering at the time." (Source: A BONE TO PICK, Green News Roundup--Weekend Briefing, http://www.mnn.com/home-blog/green-news-roundup/blogs/weekend-briefing-25)

Has anyone tried wild deer kidney fat or brains? I asked my brother-in-law to save me it if he gets a deer or two, but I read one article that said that deer fat tastes bad.

I mentioned to someone about Eskimos getting "high"/euphoric on high meats/fats. He suggested that maybe it's because alcohol is produced by the fermentation. I thought it was the bacteria that produced the effect. Does fermenting meats/fats produce any alcohol?

Here is a fascinating and controversial series of articles from Psychology Today, informed by an immersion in the research on hunter gatherer societies, that encourage us to question our basic assumptions about society and the way we live:

Play Makes Us Human
Published on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/5051)

Here are some interesting excerpts:

Have you ever noticed how we, as a society, use agricultural metaphors to talk about parenting and education? We speak of raising children, just as we speak of raising tomatoes or chickens. We speak of training children, just as we speak of training horses. Our manner of talking and thinking about parenting suggests that we own our children, much as we might own domesticated plants and livestock, and that we control how they grow and behave. We train horses to do the tasks that we want them to do, and we train---or try to train---children to do the tasks that we think will be necessary for their future success. We do that whether or not the horse or child wants such training. Training requires suppression of the trainee's will, and hence of play. The agricultural approach to parenting is, therefore, not a playful one.

Our society's concepts of raising and training children assume a dominant-subordinate relationship between parent and child. The parent---or teacher or other parent substitute---is in charge and is responsible for the child's actions. The child's primary duty, at least in theory, is to obey. This aproach to parenting seems so natural to us that it may be hard to imagine an alternative. Yet, in the context of our long history as a species, it is new. It came with agriculture, which first appeared about 10,000 years ago. Before that, we were all hunter-gatherers and we had no agricultural metaphors to guide our parenting practices.

In this series of essays, on "Play Makes Us Human," I have been describing the social values and practices of band hunter-gatherer societies. My thesis has been that an expansion of the primate play drive in our species enabled our ancestors to adopt a far more social and cooperative style of life than that manifested by other primates (see June 4, 2009, post). Hunter-gatherers seemed to use play and humor more or less deliberately to suppress tendencies toward dominance and to foster the sense of personal freedom and equality that was essential to their livelihood.

....

o "Ju/'hoansi children [of Africa] very rarely cried, probably because they had little to cry about. No child was ever yelled at or slapped or physically punished, and few were even scolded. Most never heard a discouraging word until they were approaching adolescence, and even then the reprimand, if it really was a reprimand, was delivered in a soft voice." (Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way, 2006, p 198.)

OK, I never thought I'd say this, having had past run-ins with vigorous advocates of Weston Price, WAPF and raw dairy, but the anti-WAP paranoia seems to be getting out of hand and doesn't seem destined to calm down unless we put whatever fears might underly it to rest. So I've created this poll so people can anonymously indicate their views and we can determine whether "many" here really do defend everything that Price wrote or did. I suspect there won't be a lot of unqualified supporters, but we may find that the fears are justified and that I should perhaps consider joining in the complaining about Price defenders.

I tried to put a bit of humor into the poll to lighten the mood, so don't take the categories too literally--just select the answer that matches the spirit of your views.

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/hot-topics/eating-cooked-meat-leads-to-lower-ages-serum-than-eating-carbs!!!/msg16905/#msg16905

Look, the evidence re Neolithic times is indeed clear-cut but that is solely because we have more archaeological evidence the closer we go to our present day, that's all(ironically, many palaeoists here, despite that, like to defend Weston-Price who heavily championed Neolithic diets). ....

I do hope you are not including me in that claim of unnamed "palaeoists" who "like to defend" Weston Price, some of whose views I have disagreed with frequently and vociferously in the past, here and elsewhere and whose arrogant, dogmatic self-declared promoters have brought me close to rage in the past. You admitted in an earlier post that you yourself at times have cited some of his work that you agree with. That doesn't mean you agree with him on everything or are defending him. So please stop using any language that in the slightest implies that about me or any unnamed "palaeoists." If you think someone has promulgated an unqualified defense/praise of Price, then please specify who and cite examples. Otherwise it is just broad-brush slander of "many" in this forum. (How ironic, BTW, that the PaNu doctor implied this forum was too ANTI-dairy).

I can understand if you fear that the forum might be taken over by WAP and other raw dairy advocates, which is one of the main reasons I left a past Paleo forum and made this my new home (how ironic that I have been criticized here for being too PRO Price!). Maybe this poll can help figure out whether fears along these lines are justified.

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.

Re: A day in the life of TylerDurden
« Reply #184 on: Today at 04:09:35 AM »
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/a-day-in-the-life-of-tylerdurden/msg16684/?topicseen#new

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. "

I figured this being a Paleo forum, you folks would have already heard about the easy childbirths among people on hunter-gatherer-type diets that every anthropologist who studies such people reports, if they discuss childbirth at all, but I guess not. Thank you for the opportunity to share one of the more amazing benefits of Paleo diets. The phenomenon of the excruciatingly painful modern childbirth (dystocia) has become so common and so embedded in our social psyche (I cannot count the number of TV and theater presentations I've seen of women screaming in agony during depictions of childbirth), that some people have trouble accepting the possibility that it might be generally unnecessary and avoidable. So I recommend trying to focus on the positive potential this offers, rather than the unnecessary horrors of the past. This is one of the more exciting topics of paleoanthropology and evolutionary medicine.

I would most appreciate any easy childbirth experiences people here may have had or have heard of to add to my collection. Thanks!


Effects of Modern Foods vs Ancestral/Paleo/Wild Foods on Pregnancy and Childbirth

Accumulating evidence links many complications of pregnancy and birth defects to modern foods (especially among peoples that have genes highly susceptible to damage from modern foods, such as peoples who only recently gave up a hunter gatherer way of life). These problems include the following and more:

Pregnancy problems: gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, toxemia, intense morning sickness, polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid), sciatica, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, dystocia (obstructed pregnancy) ...

Effects on the child (both early on and long term): allergies, nutritional deficiencies, light sensitivity, nightmares, excessive screaming or crying at night, autism, ADD/ADHD, type 1 diabetes, Down Syndrome, Marfan Syndrome, lax ligaments (hypermobility; double jointed) and flat feet (which are commonly caused by lax ligaments in the foot), narrow jaw, arched upper palate with prominent and crowded front teeth, pectus excavatum and carinatum, muscle wasting, ...

In contrast, diets consisting mainly of Paleo foods are linked with easy pregnancy and childbirth and lower rates of birth defects. There is much research and the experience of multiple Paleo dieting mothers to confirm this.


A Darwinian View of Obstructed Labor
Robert P. Roy, MD, FRCSC
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Address reprint requests to: Robert P. Roy, MD, FRCSC, 4398 Buchanan Street, #1805, Burnaby, BC, V5C 6R7, Canada; E-mail: robertproy@yahoo.ca.
Obstetrics & Gynecology 2003;101:397-401
© 2003 by 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 [when eating their traditional diet], appear not to suffer from dystocia. It may be that people from an agriculture-based background are, obstetrically speaking, less well adapted to the good nutrition of a modern affluent diet.


Q:  Is NeanderThin safe during pregnancy?

A (Ray Audette):  As hunter-gatherers have the easiest births and the lowest incidence of birth defects, it is not only safe but is preferred. But before adopting any changes, you must consult your family physician. The pregnant woman craves added nutrients to nourish and sustain herself and her developing baby. The mother's immune system is also working hard to protect mother and child, so care must be taken to avoid the forbidden foods while satisfying cravings by increasing dietary diversity. In this way the nausea common in pregnancy can be greatly reduced if not eliminated.


Obesity, waist-hip ratio and hunter-gatherers
LEP Wood (2006)
BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 113 (10), 1110-1116.
doi:10.1111/j.1471-0528.2006.01070.x

Abstract
Obesity is a rapidly growing global problem. It is not simply the result of eating too much, and not all types of obesity have the same significance. Obesity is in part genetic, and one particularly important genetic type of obesity is the tendency to 'truncal obesity',-that is, a raised waist-to-hip ratio. Such obesity is powerfully associated not only with a tendency to diabetes, but also to cardiovascular disease, ('Syndrome X'). Interestingly, this is the type of obesity seen in every hunter-gatherer (HG) population around the globe. Such people are intolerant of carbohydrate, especially refined carbohydrate, especially in the excessive amounts typically consumed in affluent societies. In such pure HG communities, rates of diabetes can be as high as 50% [and higher], when the 'Western' lifestyle is adopted. Many of us, however, share some of their genes and their carbohydrate intolerance-perhaps as many as 20 or 30% of the world's population. Pregnancy can uncover this characteristic, and obesity and glucose intolerance in pregnancy are rapidly burgeoning problems. Quite contrary to the common nutritional dogma of encouraging regular carbohydrates, it is suggested that pregnant women with a high waist-to-hip ratio should be strongly advised to adhere to a low-glycaemic-index diet. Additionally, many dietary interventions, some of them derived from observation of HG populations, are of proven benefit in reducing the expression of glucose intolerance and may well help in tackling the obesity epidemic.

Rising caesarean section rates: can evolution and ecology explain some of the difficulties of modern childbirth?
W A Liston FRCOG  
Department of Obstetrics, Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/full/96/11/559#REF15

[...] Why is it that modern human childbirth is so frequently associated with difficulty? Only occasionally has anyone attempted to explain this. [...]

With huge increases in population and later industrialization the life of modern woman and man bears little relation to that of the hunter-gatherer. Because biological evolution cannot keep pace, man is a hunter-gatherer living in a 21st century world. Admittedly, where selection pressures have been very strong (e.g. malaria and the haemoglobinopathies) there have been genetic changes, but the species retains much of the physiology of pre-agricultural times. Whereas hunter-gatherers went through tens of thousands of generations there have been only 500 generations of agriculturalists and just a few in the industrial era. Physicians and nutritionists have therefore proposed that certain modern diseases, particularly heart disease and type 2 diabetes, are caused by a maladaption to our current lifestyle. Similar arguments can be applied to reproductive health and obstetric performance.

 CHANGES IN HUMAN ECOLOGY  

There are four chief ways in which this misfit between biology and lifestyle could affect childbirth-diet, population density, exercise and reproductive behaviour. The diet in palaeolithic times was by most accounts richer in protein and poorer in carbohydrate, with a different pattern of fats.8,9 It was also very varied. In particular the carbohydrate component had little refined starch and sugar with much more fibre. The agriculturalists then moved to a diet with less protein and fat, and more complex carbohydrate. The modern western diet contains a super-abundance of food, especially sugar and fat with less protein than that of early upper palaeolithic man. In poorer parts of the world where protein is scarce, food consists largely of complex carbohydrate, but western tendencies and fast food are spreading to all parts of the globe.8,9 [...]

What is not widely known is that the invention of agriculture and the development of settled living had pronounced affects on physical stature. Study of skeletons points to adverse changes in the teeth11 and a general reduction of height.8,12-14 Angel 15 has charted the patterns over thousands of years. Humans were tall in early upper palaeolithic times and did not become as tall again until the late 20th century in Western Europe and the USA. ....

 CONCLUSION

Changes in diet, population density, exercise and reproductive behaviour mean that primigravid women are commonly shorter, older and fatter than is ideal for first childbirth. These adverse factors have been well recorded....


From: TRUTH
By: amg455
Subject: Nutrition
Date/Time 2005-06-21 14:04:19
http://forum.dragondoor.com/nutrition/message/341942%5C

Weston A. Price, DDS, traveled worldwide in the 1930's to investigate the health of primitive peoples who could not obtain foods of the western world. He and his wife found that all of these primitive groups ate a diet very high in fat. Some ate primarily animal meat and fat while others ate primarily seafood. Their diets did not make a difference in their health. They were all extremely healthy, strong, robust and had almost no dental cavities. They all had a broad dental arch (jaw shape) and the women had very easy childbirths because of the broad pelvic structure. Children of these people who moved to a modern society area developed crowded teeth with many cavities, and the women suffered difficulties in childbirth similar to our present western society.


From: The Ascent of Humanity
by Charles Eisenstein
Penn State University
www.ascentofhumanity.com/chapter1-5.php

Weston Price, an American dentist who lived in the early 20th century .... was curious about the decline of dental health he had seen over the decades of his practice, and hypothesized that the rapid increase in the prevalence of tooth decay, crowded dentition, and so forth, which accompanied a host of other, formerly rare, non-dental maladies had something to do with our diets. So he quit his practice and spent many years traveling to remote corners of the world where people still lived without modern foods. The societies he visited weren't all Stone Age, but they were still primitive by our standards. For example he went to remote Swiss villages accessible only by mule, he went to the outer islands of Scotland, he lived with the Masai in Africa, the Inuit in Alaska, the aborigines in Australia, Polynesians in the Pacific. In all these places he found almost zero tooth decay, zero obesity, zero heart disease, zero cancer, easy childbirth, broad jaws with all 32 teeth. The diets were different everywhere but there were some things in common - for instance, people ate very few concentrated, refined carbohydrates or other processed foods. Price's work lends support to the contention that at least in some respects, primitive people enjoyed better health than is the norm today, even without the modern medicine that we think keeps us healthy.


Anecdotal Reports:

Date:         Tue, 3 Oct 2000 02:57:58 GMT
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Stacie Tolen <tolen4@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: paleo & pregnancy

Dear Jeremy,

I am a mother of two, and was a vegetarian during each of my pregnancies-Oops. I am sorry to say that due to the effects my diet had on my uterus and sacrum (and yes I can prove this), I endured a C-section with each of my children. I also suffered severe swelling, extreme fatigue, polyhydramnios, sciatica, and many more complications and such during my pregnancies. Though a longtime vegetarian, I craved buffalo meat like mad. Protein is absolutely essential during pregnancy, 80 mg daily. Conditions such as pre-eclampsia and the dreaded toxemia are attributed to protein deficiency. B-12 (available only in animal ingredients: meat, eggs, milk), folate, iron, calcium and vitamin C are others whose deficiency can cause tremendous problems for the pregnant woman, or worse, can damage the baby. Dairy products, especially those containing traces of hormones (BGH) can cause painful menstrual cramps, and possibly worsen pain with contractions. Soy is especially harmful to the fetus, and I have the child with autistic tendencies who proves that. When I eat grains, it causes problems with my joints (some people get arthritis) and if the pelvic and sacral joints are not functioning optimally, the baby will have problems getting through. While this organization does not speak of paleolithic diet, I do recommend that you check out http://www.bradleybirth.org for info. on prenatal nutritional requirements and, if you're interested, natural childbirth. Please do not confuse Bradley with Lamaze, they couldn't be more different and I personally do NOT recommend Lamaze or, worse, something wich claims to be a combination thereof. Your baby's mother should begin paying attention to her diet now if you plan to conceive in the next few months.

Best wishes, Stacie


Date:         Wed, 16 Aug 2000 13:57:19 -0500
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Brad Cooley <Bcooley@SOUTHDOWN.COM>
Subject:      Re: Healthy Babies

Justin,

My first advice for your pregnant coworkers is to read The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff (http://www.continuum-concept.org/)  and Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small.  These books really don't address nutritional aspects of childcare, but do address other issues that affect health.  If they would like breastfeeding information, their local La Leche League (http://www.lalecheleague.org/) should have monthly meetings and individuals that can provide information and other support.   LLL has been a great resource for my wife.

My wife gave birth to our first child in April 2000.  Before she started incorporating paleo philosophy into her eating habits, she was unable to conceive.  Within 3 weeks of going paleo, she was pregnant...maybe just a happy coincidence.  During her pregnancy she gained only 25 lbs, gave birth to a 7 lb 10 oz girl, was walking within an hour of the birth, and dropped 35 lbs within a month (from pre-birth weight).  I should point out that she didnt always eat paleo foods, but stuck to it pretty well.  Certainly, her diet contributed to a relatively low weight gain, a successful natural childbirth, and significant loss of weight after childbirth.  Also, IMO, because she eats a lot of meat, her milk production has been very good while breastfeeding.  The baby is always well-fed, and sleeps very well at night.

Oddly enough many of the diets recommended for pregnant and lactating women are near-paleo, but with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables.  The same can be said for children.

Let me know if you would like more info.

Brad
 

Date:         Thu, 23 Dec 1999 08:28:23 -0600
Date:         Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:22:32 -0500
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Ray Audette <rso456@AIRMAIL.NET>
Subject:      Re: the "perils of childbirth" -- question for Ray

From: Jana Eagle >
> I am just wondering if you have some evidence about paleolithic
> childbirths and death statistics or if you are taking the modern-day
> media images of the traumatic operating room childbirth and
> transferring it onto paleolithic times.

I didn't mean to leave this impression.  From studies cited by [Vilhjalmur] Stefansson,
hunter-gatherers have far less trauma and labor in childbirth than do
agricultural women.  Just removing the hazards of gestational diabetes often
found in modern women ( resulting in very large babies) would improve these
statistics considerably but I suspect much more is involved.

When Gray-Hawk ( seven on May 14th ) was born, it was without doctors or
drugs.  We arrived at the mid-wives['] at 3:15 PM and he arrived at 5:20 after
2 hours of mild labor […].  As my prediction, five months earlier, of the easiest birth they had ever seen came true, the midwives bought six copies of my book.

After one year he weaned himself from his mother and would eat almost
nothing but Pemmican for the next year.  About the only exceptions were
watered-down fruit juice and pork rinds for teething.

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin"


Date:         Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:07:05 -0600
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Jana Eagle <jana@FIG.ORG>
Subject:      toddlers and paleo

        Rebecca Fincher <meegok2@HOTMAIL.COM> writes:

> 1.  I was reading in the archives a chain titled "pain in childbirth?" that
> interested me because of my experience with PPD (not known to be present in
> tribal cultures or most "traditional" cultures)and because I have had 2
> C-sections (intended to have a natural birth both times).  Is Ray Audette's
> wife an isolated example of paleodiet eaters who give birth quickly and w/o
> complications?  Anyone else out there?  Anyone with experience to the
> contrary? Is there any research on this available?

I can find out more about this, depending on your interest.  I do know someone personally who had a very easy, painless birth and was following a paleo diet.  I wish I knew of more paleo eaters and their birth experiences.  I imagine there are so many circumstances that affect birth that every situation is different...

> 2.  I have corresponded some with Stacie Tolen on this subject, but if there
> is anyone out there who has raised a toddler on this diet, I would
> appreciate your input.  How do you keep enough calcium in the diet?  (Both
> my kids still bf; maybe it's not a concern.)  What foods do you prepare that
> your kids like/can eat?

believe it or not, I talked to my two year old and explained that sugar wasn't good for her body, and she doesn't ask for cookies, ice cream, candy like i thought she would.  she will ask me if something has sugar in it and if it does she understands that we're not going to eat it.  everywhere we go, people are offering her sugar, though.  it makes me realize how much candy kids really do eat

we have this little game about food that "grows on trees".  if it grows on trees or on a plant, we eat it.  so she asks does coconut grow on trees?  do kiwis grow on trees?  and we talk about all the food that grows on trees.

i prepare almost all our meals at home and always pack snacks to take along on outings.  she likes meat a lot, and goes through phases on fruits and vegetables and nuts, where she will really like one thing and eat a lot of it, and then a week later seems "finished" and moves on to something else.  the freshest, in season produce seems the most attractive.  also she likes jerky.

JAna


Date:         Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:18:49 -0700
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Susan Carmack <scarmack@DOWCO.COM>
Subject:      Paleo is in the Bible too!

Hi Kristina and paleopeoples,

....

I have a friend who went completely paleo - no grains - who just had a baby at her house in a tub of water. NO pain. 3 1/2 hours of labour. She is 40 and said it was so easy, she would have 'a million more'. Her husband agreed to one. She has 2 toddlers at home already!! This woman was originally scheduled for a Caesarian … because she almost died last time from heart disease/or an allergic reaction to penicillin.

Is this pain free birth indication that we could be close to going back to the Garden?

>     Planting and tilling and harvesting,
>     sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
>     Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
>     you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

The advent of agricultural revolution and the cultivation of grains! This is coincident to Eliots post about the grains for slaves project. We became slaves when Adam and Eve got the boot! Adam and Eve had everything to eat in the Garden, no sweat involved:

(Genesis 2:8-9) . . .. 9 Thus God made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one's sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

...but it didn't take long to wreck the Place.

Paleobest,
Susan

 
Date:         Wed, 14 Sep 2005 20:21:11 -0700
Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Mermaid Rose <mermaidxrose@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Paleo pregnancy

To all the mamas-to-be, congratulations, and thanks for bringing healthy babies to the world.  Midwife here, doiing home births for 20 years, water births as well... very ancient practices (duh, lol).

I believe paleo is the way of eating that creates healthier pregnancies.  Obviously we are here today because of how we ate.  There are pregnancy related health conditions that can be avoided by eating this way...ie gestational diabetes and toxemia (both which are treated by upping consumption of protein).

As far as the fish oil...it is the only supplement I recommend to my mamas....I am just not sure if the amount you are taking may be too much...wish I knew the answer.  I would not recommend that much myself.  Not based on anything other than gut feelings.  I wish I could get everyone in my practice to eat the plaeo way....but alas...there are a bunch of vegetarians in the crowd!  I love them all!

Remember to eat frequently...helps keep blood glucose even...helps especially with nausea (for which, btw, I also recommend protein).  Snacking is a good way of getting all that.  Especially nuts.  Since you are wanting snacky foods, a nutty trail mix is a good way to take care of the desire of something crunchy and something sweet (put dried apples or apricots in it).  Hard boiled eggs is another quick snack.

If I can be of any help, just write.  Happy birthing!!  Keep us updated.

Love & Peace
Lillian


Bad Modern Birthing Practices

Sender:       Paleolithic Eating Support List <PALEOFOOD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From:         Marsha in Texas <marsha@CCMS.NET>
Subject:      Re: Longevity and Paleo -- childbirth

Date:    Thu, 23 Dec 1999 05:08:45 -0800
From:    Kenny Brown <pts_racer@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Longevity and Paleo

<snip>
>Interesting idea.  Maybe the glucose IV's has
>something to do with causing a greater risk for
>infection following surgery.

In 1971 when our first son was born we wanted it to be a home birth. Complications changed that. I was in the hospital for less than 24 hours and had a drug-free birth. We insisted the baby not be given sugar-water as his first meal outside the womb! The pediatrician on duty [the one we'd spoken w/and who'd agreed to do as we wished was out of town the day Jake was born] went ballistic. He stormed into the recovery room, pointing his finger in my face, YELLing at me that I may have read a book about birthing babies but he was a trained professional and just who did I think I was talking to telling HIM he could not give my son sugar-water!! Whew!


-----Original Message-----
From: Paleolithic Eating Support List
[mailto:PALEOFOOD@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG] On Behalf Of Mrs Caroline Centa
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 4:02 AM
To: PALEOFOOD@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG
Subject: Re: pregnant paleo?

I was pregnant after I had been Paleo for 2 years.  I was reasonably strict too.  I got sent to a dietitian because the midwives said my diet was ridiculous and not sufficient.  The Dietitian said it was fine.  I had to make sure I was getting enough energy, calcium (100g almonds has twice as much calcium than 100mL of milk... we eat a lot of almonds in the form of almond meal.  You can also get calcium from Kale, Brocolli etc) and carbs and fibre (lots of fruit, especially dried fruit was good for that).

I survived (although I did eat a couple of 'naughty' things due to cravings at the time) and the labour was very good (I had been told that being Paleo makes your body handle labour better and even though I haven't done it before I have witnessed 3 births and think I did really well - no drugs or interventions and not as much pain as I anticipated).  My baby came out very healthy and alert.  He was a good weight (6 pound 14) and was only 3 days early.

We have also been bringing him up on a Paleo diet and he is developing in leaps and bounds.

The Paleo diet is our natural diet.  It does well for our bodies and our children.  We are designed to eat the diet and be pregnant.  I am also pregnant again (9 weeks now) and intend on doing the diet fully this time (not succumbing to the cravings).  I am hoping by doing it properly the pain will be even less...


Paleo dieter, Rachel Matesz summed up the common-sense nature of improved pregnancies on a Paleo diet:

>Date:    Thurs, 5 Aug 1999 22:24:40 +0200
>From:    Rachel Matesz <matesz@earthlink.net
Subject:  Paleo-pregnancy

>Re:  Have any studies been done on paleo-pregnancies?  Women following a
>paleo WOL
>during their pregnancy.

For:  Maria Tomashefsky-Dugan and others.  Are you serious?  We don't  need
any studies!!!!  We have 2 1/2 million years of evidence that a Paleo diet
can support reproduction.  How on earth do you think we got here?  The PWOE
and PWOL isn't new.  It's not a fad....it's the longest practiced WOL and
WOE on the planet.  Every heard of a 2 million year old fad?  Whatever we
modern people have been doing, it's a blink of an eye, a few minutes, if
that, in the context of a 24 hour block of time. ….


Easy birth vs Dystocia among animals:
Easy birthing vs. dystocia is even apparent in wild vs. domesticated animals. The ranch hands of the Adams Ranch in Florida said that they leave their grass-fed pregnant cows to handle births on their own out in the fields and there is rarely if ever a problem, whereas grain-fed cattle have much higher risks of complications and tend to require having a farmer or vet at hand during the birth, in case there are problems. Every wild animal birth I have seen on nature shows was amazingly quick and easy, whereas I have seen a grain-fed, barn-cooped cow in tremendous distress from her pregnancy.