I think it means you are spending far too much time surfing the net.

I would say that mental performance and mental health on a raw omnivorous diet (I prefer this term to 'paleo' because I'm not fond of the connotations and baggage that paleo carries) varies a lot. I have been largely raw since 2003 and am very high functioning. I have a PhD and teach graduate and undergraduate courses at the college level, and run a small consulting company. I like to think I'm pretty sharp, and my students, colleagues, and clients would seem to agree with that assessment. I also have no mental health issues.

Not everyone who has tried a raw omnivorous diet can boast of similar results. If you read through various threads you'll see several wherein folks who have tried this diet are not enjoying much success at alleviating symptoms of (for example) depression, fatigue, and schizophrenia. Judging by some people's outbursts, their less-than-stellar writing skills and their goofy arguments about various things I would also say that eating a raw diet doesn't guarantee mental acuity either.

And I would add that the color of the liver in ys' picture looks off to me. If I received a liver that looked like that, I don't think I would eat it. Unless I was just about starving to death and had no other options.

I get 144 results and most, if not all, aren't related to what we're looking for. 

I get about 400,000 hits using Google, and most on the first few pages seem to be related. Google uses algorithms that tailor search results to the user, so it's not too much of a surprise that my, your and eveheart's results would differ.

The cysts you're referring to are, as ys alluded, most likely tapeworm cysts. In newly infected or young animals the cysts are typically soft, but as an animal ages the cysts can become calcified. As far as I know, whether the cyst is soft or calcified (hard) they are still infectious. Whether the larvae will attach to your intestine or whether your immune system will fend it off and it will pass through you and die will depend on a lot of things.

I've eaten a sheep liver that had calcified cysts. I ate a couple of the cysts but was never infected with a tapeworm. Once I got a closer look at one and figured out what it was I cut the rest out. The liver tasted fine.

I'm open about my diet, and will eat most anywhere. The thing with me is that since I'm largely raw Zone these days, most of my meals are salad-like in appearance with all ingredients (raw root vegetables for carbs, raw meat for protein, raw suet and/or olives for fat, some raw greens for phytochemicals) chopped up and sprinkled with a little olive oil or vinegar. So someone might look at what I'm eating and not really think anything of it, because the meat isn't so obvious. I have, on occasion, eaten meals that were made up of largely raw meat or broke a few raw eggs into a glass and downed them and gotten questions, but generally once I tell people I've been eating this way since 2003 they tend not to bother me about it anymore as that seems to quell their fears of immanent illness. And I look good, so that helps too.

Great points regarding egg quality. Good eggs are tough to find. As with beef and other meats, the problem is the commercialization of egg production. A chicken can get 100 percent of its food from most landscapes if there are few enough chickens foraging on a large enough area (and predators are kept at bay). The problem emerges when a producer wants to make money selling eggs. Then you need more chickens to produce more eggs, and larger numbers of chickens can quickly overtax land and their foraged diet needs to be supplemented with commercial feeds. Ducks are better at foraging in temperate climates as they're from here (chickens are originally tropical birds), and geese are better still. If I took up the raising of fowl, I'd probably go for ducks over chickens. There is a producer of duck eggs here in northern Vermont who feeds very little grain (less than 25 percent of his ducks' total daily calories) during the summer months. The eggs are amazing. He's only able to bring about 4 dozen to the farmers market each weekend though, and they're generally sold out within 30 minutes of the market opening. I managed to get 1.5 dozen eggs this morning, but next time I might be too late.

You might reach out to Inger through the forum's message system. She's the only long-term female VLCer that I know of, either on this forum or on others I've visited at various points. She'd be a great sounding board for some of your ideas. She lives in northern Europe, I believe.

I thought that a lot of folks here were either ZC or low-carB and had been doing very well for several years following such a diet? 

What Geoff (TylerDurden) said. While there are a couple people who've managed to make VLC work over the longer term, they are a tiny minority. Most of us have backed far off that. As someone who is into athletics myself, I've transitioned to something more akin to the Zone Diet with respect to macro ratios, around 40-30-30 favoring carbs. I do go through stretches of maybe a few weeks to a month where I'll go back to VLC, but that's only temporary.

I responded to some of your questions in another thread, but thought I'd contribute here too. My answers are listed after your questions, which are in quotes below.

Even though I can feel my body wanting and needing the extra fat, will I put fat on while going from a moderate carb/fat/protein diet (currently) to a ketogenic diet as the body adapts to fat burning or will the shift just be apparent in some initial fatigue? I just don't want to take any steps backwards and gain more fat while trying to shed it.

If you are getting most of your calories from fat it's terribly hard for your body to store fat away. The biochemistry just doesn't favor it. A bigger question is whether or not you can meet your stated goals while staying ketogenic. Anaerobic workouts (like weight lifting) favor the burning of glucose, so if you aren't eating foods that can provide this glucose then there's a high likelihood that your body will start cannibalizing its stores of protein (aka muscle fiber) to turn into glucose through the process of gluconeogenesis. The end result is that you'll plateau in terms of your athletic goals and your physique even as you continue working out. I think you're much better off eating a modest amount of carbs, say 30-40 percent of your total calories. A ketogenic diet would be great if you were training to be an endurance athlete (i.e. doing aerobic exercise like long gentle runs or bike rides), but it doesn't work that well for anaerobic athleticism, in my experience.

I also don't see why you want to stay in calorie deficit. If you're working out hard, that is not the time to attempt a calorie restricted diet provided the calories you're eating are nutritionally useful.

-Will the 20-50g of carbs allow me to stay in ketosis?

Yes, but see above. I think you are undermining your training goals by trying to stay ketogenic.

-When would the best time to consume those carbs be...post-workout or right before bed to fuel the fasted workout?

I'd eat them about an hour before your workout, or right before bed if you intend to go into your workout fasted.

-How long does it take to get into ketosis?

It varies from person-to-person, and on whether you've been ketoadapted before. I'd guess 2-4 weeks.

-What can I expect as far as training while on a keto-diet? 

If you're doing aerobic training (gentle running, swimming, biking) then you will see slow but steady gains over a period of 3-6 months, then slower gains for perhaps the next few years as you ease towards your full potential. Your endurance will become amazing though, as long as you keep your heart rate low enough during exercise that your muscles remain in aerobic territory. On the other hand, if you're doing anaerobic training (sprints, weight lifting, CrossFit) you will feel terrible, and you might even pass out. Your strength gains will be far below potential and you'll probably plateau reasonably quickly, and you'll have trouble gaining muscle mass because your body will constantly cannibalize muscle tissue to turn into glucose. If your main workout regimen includes anything anaerobic, including weight training, I strongly advise against attempting to stay in ketosis. There is definitely a time for this style of eating and metabolism, but it's not for stretches where you're doing a lot of anaerobic work.

-How long does it generally take for the body to adjust to a keto-diet?  Any cons of entering ketosis?

2-4 weeks, in my experience. The only con is that you feel terrible for a while, but that passes. See my above comments about attempting to maintain an anaerobic training regimen while in ketosis though. Not recommended!

-Is a keto-diet optimal for cutting to the bodyfat percentage goal that I have or could I reach my goals while still consuming carbs?

I can't say whether it's optimal, but it can definitely work if coupled with aerobic workouts. If your goal is to do anaerobic workouts (weight lifting), I suggest more like a zone diet that advocates a 40-30-30 balance of carbs-protein-fat. When I first started CrossFit I tried desperately to stay in ketosis, and it was an epic fail. Only since transitioning towards more moderate amounts of carbs has my body adjusted to the rigors of CrossFit (and anaerobic training more generally). Since I transitioned, strength gains, lean muscle mass gains, and body fat loss have been swift.

Thinking about the original title of this post, another thing I've grown interested in is raising and eating insects. The book Edible, by Daniella Martin, offers instructions at the end for raising crickets, mealworms and waxworms. I want to try doing that. I think it would be a great way to gain access to very high quality protein and fat, and I could enhance the omega 3 content of the insects by feeding them omega-3 rich plant foods that I might not be able to digest and utilize as well, like flax seeds.

RF, what do you see as the difference between management intensive grazing and holistic management? I think of holistic management, as defined by Allan Savory, as being one type of management intensive grazing. I don't see them as being overwhelmingly different.