how do you feel when/after you "cheat"?

[JaX]

what effects do you feel if you eat this for a short period:
- dairy
- grains
- sweet fruits/high carb
- cooked animal protein or fat

how much do you need of the food to get the negative effects?

and how you feel when you get back on track with RP?



dairy clogs my nose and makes my skin break out if I drink it for a couple of days. Grains make me tired immediately after eating and give me very bad mouth taste. I've also noticed that dairy somehow causes a temporary high in mood with a following low.

When I return to RP with raw fats after a few days of being completely off track I feel like I have a serious flu ... this only lasts for one or two days.

[yon yonson]

with cooked animal protein i just feel really bloated and then i have some funky BM's for a day or two. if i eat lots of carbs (which i havent since going zero carb for about 8 weeks now) my crotch starts feeling like its on fire. weird but i guess i've struggled with candida so that kinda makes sense. i also get a little bloated with more carbs. havent had grains or dairy in quite a while

[Raw Kyle]

All kinds of stuff like that. Bloated, really thirsty and retain water if eating salt. Generally low energy while digesting, although sometimes a temporary high I suppose from quick digesting carbs.

[TylerDurden]

what effects do you feel if you eat this for a short period:
- dairy
- grains
- sweet fruits/high carb
- cooked animal protein or fat

how much do you need of the food to get the negative effects?

and how you feel when you get back on track with RP?



dairy clogs my nose and makes my skin break out if I drink it for a couple of days. Grains make me tired immediately after eating and give me very bad mouth taste. I've also noticed that dairy somehow causes a temporary high in mood with a following low.

When I return to RP with raw fats after a few days of being completely off track I feel like I have a serious flu ... this only lasts for one or two days.

Dairy gives me a runny nose also, plus a feeling of energy/mood-boost for half an hour followed by a period of drugged-like fatigue(so, to keep the boost going I'd have to spend all my time drinking raw dairy(much like what some primal dieters do, but anyway...) I also get frequent urination, yellow stools, diarrhea(or constipation if I eat raw cheese). If I were to consume raw dairy for too long, I would get far worse symptoms such as damage to my adrenal/thyroid glands with numerous related side-effects such as heat-intolerance etc.(all things I got from dairy-consumption up till c.8 months into RAF diets when I switched to rawpalaeo)


Grains are odd. I don't seem to get an immediate short-term reaction to them, other than coughing up a little yellow mucus a few minutes or hours after eating them(much like what often happens when I eat cooked foods in general). Also, pastry is a real problem as, ever since going for RAF diets, I've found that any pastry, however organic, needs to be washed down with lots of water or it gets stuck in my throat - pre-RAF diets, I had no such problems so I'm assuming that the human body secretes much more mucus while doing cooked diets for more than few months,  so as to compensate for the lack of water-content in so many processed foods. (I have a dim memory of when I was being weaned, as an infant, where I was given dry biscuits which also, at the time, took ages to get down until I got used to them).

I have no real problems with sweet fruits or high-carb(sweet fruits are actually  "RP", by the way!). If raw grassfed/wild meat sources are low I don't mind eating only raw(preferably organic) fruit for a week. If I eat vast amounts of fruit within a very short time period, I might feel very, very slightly drugged due to blood-sugar-levels(eg:- when eating a lot of dates), but , being on VLC or LC most of the time, suddenly eating higher carb doesn't bother me. In fact, if I cut out all sweet fruit/raw carbs altogether, that's when my health really  starts collapsing. It takes just 2 weeks to start appearing - by that stage, I'm slowly starting to feel desperate cravings for carbs, I get a terrible thirst for water all the time(but drinking vast amounts of (mineral)water doesn't help as it's really eating carbs that removes the health-problems sustained by me  on  o carb), I start feeling extremely tired all the time, get panic-attacks, and have to force myself to eat even tiny amounts of animal food, feeling the urge to vomit  each time I try. I also start feeling like I'm dying, in a general sense, get deep black circles around my eyes, and any number of a cluster of minor symptoms. I also become almost incapable of exercise for more than a few seconds, each time.The above symptoms are not all immediately obvious by the end of the 2nd week(just 1 or issues start appearing in a very minor way within the 2 week period like the decline in ability to exercise or a slow decline in taste for raw animal foods), but by the 3rd week, they really come to the fore with my entire life being dominated by the hunger/fatigue etc etc., and by 6 weeks, it becomes so dangerous that I have to give up or face hospitalisation.

Re cooked animal fat/protein:- Cooked animal fat of any kind, be it grassfed or whatever, has an extremely deadly effect on my health, re panic-attacks etc. Fortunately, in the last 6 months, the few times I've tried eating such fare, for social reasons, I have almost always ended up vomiting the stuff out a few hours later, which means any ngeative effects are almost reduced to 0.Previously, only very highly-processed foods made me vomit without my prompting.

In the first few years, when I was able to hold down cooked animal fat, I would, the next day, get the exact same symptoms one gets from a hangover(such as feeling off-balance, unable to think straight, headache etc. - sometimes I get runny nose/warm forehad flu-like symptoms but it's rare, the latter just happened in the past on those rare occasions I detoxed) Eating high-meat or eating fresh raw animal foods(like raw eggs) before or after any such cooked animal fat was eaten, greatly reduced such negative reactions.


I find I get almost no immediate  effects from eating cooked lean protein such as a cooked turkey or cooked fish. I suspect I would get some serious symptoms if I ate them very frequently, but that doesn't happen.

[Satya]

I have no real problems with sweet fruits or high-carb(sweet fruits are actually  "RP", by the way!).

If they have been selectively bred by man to be bigger and sweeter, then no, they are not Paleolithic foods.  Wild fruit that has not been tampered with over the generations would fit the bill, however.

[TylerDurden]

If they have been selectively bred by man to be bigger and sweeter, then no, they are not Paleolithic foods.  Wild fruit that has not been tampered with over the generations would fit the bill, however.

The trouble with this claim is that all current domestic animals have undergone as severe a breeding-process as any current fruits.So, by the above, overly extreme definition, not even the 100% grassfed/organic meats that we have currently available, are even  remotely "rawpalaeo", as they, much like modern fruits, have no comparison, nutrition-wise, to their Palaeolithic counterparts, such as the Palaeo-era aurochs(the wild ancestors of cattle) etc.

[Satya]

Yes, but the modern fruits have had their sugar content increased dramatically, whereas modern beef raised on pasture have not been altered chemically to such an extent.  Also, we must keep in mind that there is absolutely no requirement for humans to consume any sugar, but both essential amino acids and essential fatty acids must be consumed.  Last, most fruit is highly seasonal, and would have been more so in the colder Paleolithic global climate.  It certainly should not be consumed with any regularity, as it would not have been during the last 200kya or so.

[rafonly]

"In fact, if I cut out all sweet fruit/raw carbs altogether, that's when my health really  starts collapsing. It takes just 2 weeks to start appearing - by that stage, I'm slowly starting to feel desperate cravings for carbs, I get a terrible thirst for water all the time(but drinking vast amounts of (mineral)water doesn't help as it's really eating carbs that removes the health-problems sustained by me  on  o carb), I start feeling extremely tired all the time, get panic-attacks, and have to force myself to eat even tiny amounts of animal food, feeling the urge to vomit  each time I try. I also start feeling like I'm dying, in a general sense, get deep black circles around my eyes, and any number of a cluster of minor symptoms. I also become almost incapable of exercise for more than a few seconds, each time.The above symptoms are not all immediately obvious by the end of the 2nd week(just 1 or issues start appearing in a very minor way within the 2 week period like the decline in ability to exercise or a slow decline in taste for raw animal foods), but by the 3rd week, they really come to the fore with my entire life being dominated by the hunger/fatigue etc etc., and by 6 weeks, it becomes so dangerous that I have to give up or face hospitalisation."

funny
that's how i feel if i eat raw fruits (sweet fruits, tomatoes)
candida & other fungi lord over my body & mind > the tyrants make me crave sweet things desperately (& drink as desperately) or else i may die of an hypoglycemic blackout or a heart attack...
{not to mention the bloating or the leg/face edema}

[TylerDurden]

Yes, but the modern fruits have had their sugar content increased dramatically, whereas modern beef raised on pasture have not been altered chemically to such an extent.  Also, we must keep in mind that there is absolutely no requirement for humans to consume any sugar, but both essential amino acids and essential fatty acids must be consumed.  Last, most fruit is highly seasonal, and would have been more so in the colder Paleolithic global climate.  It certainly should not be consumed with any regularity, as it would not have been during the last 200kya or so.

Unfortunately, you're wrongly assuming that the glaciers covered the whole globe. if you have a look at the extent of the glaciers in the last Ice-Age(there are online maps) you will be as astonished as I was to find that the glaciers covered only a tiny part of the globe, even at the coldest stage of the Ice-Age. Secondly, fruit is available not just in the summer, indeed for much longer parts of the year. When one includes raw veg such as radishes/garlci etc.(and I know of studies showing consumption of vegetables, as a staplr, in the Palaeolithic in Africa), it's clear that some fruit/veg was indeed consumed most of the time(except in the winter).

The argument re beef raised on pasture simply doesn't hold water. For one thing, the taste and nutritional profile of even current wildgame meats/organ-meats is FAR superior to any kind of meats from 100% grassfed/domestic animals. This is unsurprising, as domesticated animals have been raised after many, many millenia of extremely unhealthy (in-)breeding-techniques, designed to increase milk-output etc.(not very palaeo!). By contrast, palaeo humans had access to wild aurochs, mammoths etc. with far superior nutrient-profiles to anything we have today re meats.

[TylerDurden]

"In fact, if I cut out all sweet fruit/raw carbs altogether, that's when my health really  starts collapsing. It takes just 2 weeks to start appearing - by that stage, I'm slowly starting to feel desperate cravings for carbs, I get a terrible thirst for water all the time(but drinking vast amounts of (mineral)water doesn't help as it's really eating carbs that removes the health-problems sustained by me  on  o carb), I start feeling extremely tired all the time, get panic-attacks, and have to force myself to eat even tiny amounts of animal food, feeling the urge to vomit  each time I try. I also start feeling like I'm dying, in a general sense, get deep black circles around my eyes, and any number of a cluster of minor symptoms. I also become almost incapable of exercise for more than a few seconds, each time.The above symptoms are not all immediately obvious by the end of the 2nd week(just 1 or issues start appearing in a very minor way within the 2 week period like the decline in ability to exercise or a slow decline in taste for raw animal foods), but by the 3rd week, they really come to the fore with my entire life being dominated by the hunger/fatigue etc etc., and by 6 weeks, it becomes so dangerous that I have to give up or face hospitalisation."

funny
that's how i feel if i eat raw fruits (sweet fruits, tomatoes)
candida & other fungi lord over my body & mind > the tyrants make me crave sweet things desperately (& drink as desperately) or else & may die of an hypoglycemic blackout or a heart attack...
{not to mention the bloating or the leg/face edema}

Unfortunately, that argument isn't exactly likely as candida isn't one of my symptoms.  I once bought into this whole absurd notion re detox as always being OK when I was on the Primal Diet. I went a whole 6 months believing that raw dairy was doing me some good re  supposedly "detoxing me", despite all the horrific side-effects and damage to my body. Fortunately, I eventually had the sense to realise that I was going to die within a couple of years if I didn't change my diet drastically. And, luckily, I had the same sense to stop raw,zero-carb before I ended up in the morgue.

[rafonly]

that sounds right on the mark -- based on my experience & research:

milk & milk products are the other great feast of fungi

[TylerDurden]

that sounds right on the mark -- based on my experience & research:

milk & milk products are the other great feast of fungi

Strange as it may seem, dairy-intolerance is something that not only candida-sufferers experience, but many others with completely different conditions.

[rafonly]

even such an ignoramus as myself has heard of the enzymes needed by humans to digest animal dairy...

that said, however, if fungi did not thrive in milk, how would people make yogurt, cheese, etc.?
{& bread & wine & beer...? & even high meat?}

the fermentation process does not seem to end in bacteria alone: fungi do their part too

[TylerDurden]

even such an ignoramus as myself has heard of the enzymes needed by humans to digest animal dairy...

that said, however, if fungi did not thrive in milk, how would people make yogurt, cheese, etc.?
{& bread & wine & beer...? & even high meat?}

the fermentation process does not seem to end in bacteria alone: fungi do their part too

Well, I have never had an issue with (fungi-rich) high-meat at any stage of this diet.

[Satya]

Unfortunately, you're wrongly assuming that the glaciers covered the whole globe. if you have a look at the extent of the glaciers in the last Ice-Age(there are online maps) you will be as astonished as I was to find that the glaciers covered only a tiny part of the globe, even at the coldest stage of the Ice-Age. Secondly, fruit is available not just in the summer, indeed for much longer parts of the year. When one includes raw veg such as radishes/garlci etc.(and I know of studies showing consumption of vegetables, as a staplr, in the Palaeolithic in Africa), it's clear that some fruit/veg was indeed consumed most of the time(except in the winter).

How dare you wrongly and unfairly put words in my mouth to try and win an argument!  I said nothing about glaciers, so I will not respond about glaciers.  I wrote about climate, and that the climate was always colder than today is fact, but of course it did fluctuate to a large extent over millennia.  You are sinking to the kind of lows your new moderator is obviously so proud of that he cross posts from NN to this group.  Personal attacks and remarks designed to belittle someone with whom you argue demonstrate immaturity bordering on intellectual dishonesty.  I will not engage with someone who cannot debate fairly. 

[rafonly]

"I have never had an issue with (fungi-rich) high-meat at any stage of this diet"

you may be 1 of those happy lucky humans who get along w/ fungi (incl. yeast) in so friendly terms that you provide them w/ all the fruit & fermentations they ask you for, thus not only helping them but also taking care of yourself by the same token
good for you!

others, who seem not to share your same biotype, are not fungi-yeast resistant & do well only if practicing any of the various hues of minimal carb foodstyles

iow, not every single forum reader will experience the sort of things you describe as your own carnivore experimentation
that's why i pointed out that in my case roughly the same symptoms will appear if i ate the high fruit diet you thrive on

every1 = an individual:
some1's food = some else's poison

[TylerDurden]

How dare you wrongly and unfairly put words in my mouth to try and win an argument!  I said nothing about glaciers, so I will not respond about glaciers.  I wrote about climate, and that the climate was always colder than today is fact, but of course it did fluctuate to a large extent over millennia.  You are sinking to the kind of lows your new moderator is obviously so proud of that he cross posts from NN to this group.  Personal attacks and remarks designed to belittle someone with whom you argue demonstrate immaturity bordering on intellectual dishonesty.  I will not engage with someone who cannot debate fairly. 

This seems rather silly. I merely pointed out the issue re glaciers as it's a common, tired  zero-carb claim  that the climate was colder, therefore , supposedly,few if any fruits were available. The unspoken assumption behind such a claim is, invariably, that there was an Ice-Age, therefore, glaciers were all over the entire place  except for the equator, and therefore fruits would have, supposedly,  been less prevalent(ie virtually nonexistent). I merely acted to counter this notion.

As regards the new moderator, all he did was refer to  some anti-raw remarks by an NN-member.  Since this is a pro-raw forum, that's hardly a crime(even if he did mock the other guy for certain  failings). And, besides, he pointed out some obvious, illogical flaws made by the NN member in question. We have to remember that all us RAFers are constantly bombarded, in everyday life, by all sorts of absurdist pro-cooked arguments, so  it's always useful to mention such episodes so that we can have ready-made counter-arguments in case we are also challenged. I happen to have had a recent challenge on the palaeofood list so I'm always graetful for a fresh perspective, enabling me to add a new line to my arguments - and the new moderator pointed out something obvious in that very NN discussion I hadn't even considered.

[TylerDurden]

every1 = an individual:
some1's food = some else's poison

On that, we wholeheartedly agree on. It's just a shame, that others don't.

[Guittarman03]

Let's see, how do I feel when/after I cheat?  Well, at first, while I'm eating, I feel great.  It's like drugs really... no actually I'm fairly convinced it is drugs - based on the reaction of the body and mind.  But pretty soon in to the meal I start to feel thirsty.  Very thirsty.  In a humid environment I drink less than 8 oz a day on RP, but I'll chug down a full 16oz in one cooked meal.

Dairy doesn't bother me so much, unless it's straight cows milk, in which case I get pretty congested.
Grains are actually not that bad, in small amts.  I don't really have any probs unless it's a plate full of spaghetti (which is excessive)
Sweet fruit/high carb is no problem really, except for they can get the bowels a little loose in excess amts.
Cooked (that is fully cooked) meat is no good.  For a full day afterwards I have 2-3 bowel movements, and w/ poor consistency and smell.

Last bit:  I know from a biochemical standpoint there is no need to consume carbs.  I know our bodies can manufacture all we need, but when I try to go prolonged zero carb, it doesn't work.  It's one of those, who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes?  I know it's not a matter of keto adaption as I am FULLY keto adapted at less than 30g, usually less than 15g every day (for a good 4 months now).  But if I drop to zero and keep it that way, I start getting symptoms similar to Tyler (not quite so bad tho).  Not only that, the first time I tried it I DEVELOPED CAVITIES for the first time ever in my life.  Immediately after I added some carbs back in, I felt better, breath smelled better, and the caries began to shrink (just 1 tiny dot on 1 tooth now).  But for some people it works great.

Satya, you are experimenting with zero carb right now correct?  How long how you gone w/o ANY carbs?  How is it working out for you? 

Also, random question, what animal sources contain potassium?  I was just thinking about that today.   

[Satya]

Satya, you are experimenting with zero carb right now correct?  How long how you gone w/o ANY carbs?  How is it working out for you? 

Also, random question, what animal sources contain potassium?  I was just thinking about that today.   

I feel great, but I am just beginning.  I have been zc 5 weeks until I ate about 1/3 cup of veggies due to social pressure last Saturday.  Never again.  I have felt nothing but great since giving up carbs.  I am practicing and teaching tkd almost daily with no ill effects.  And this is very intense exercise about 2 hours a day 4-5 days a week.  My skin feels great, my clothes fit better and I have no complaints.  However, I think it's impossible to go totally without carbs, as some animal foods that I think are really healthy - like liver and oysters - have some carbs.  So technically speaking, I am a carnivore more than I am zero carb.  That said, everyone should be able to shun plant foods without ill effect for at least months on end; and if not, they would be out of the gene pool back in paleo times (times that no plant foods were ever found at human sites by the way).  Really, anything under 5-20 a day is the same ... unless a person is really overweight with insulin resistance.  Oh, my teenage son has totally gone in for zc as well.  He is rockin along.

Bones are a great source of potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc.  Of course, unless you eat small, whole fish, you'd have to make a stock to get these minerals.

[Ioanna]

so what about pemmican (lean dehydrated at 95 and fat rendered as low as possible which I believe is 200ish)?  how do you feel after eating it?  perfect food or a cooked 'cheat' based on how you feel afterward?

[TylerDurden]

But if I drop to zero and keep it that way, I start getting symptoms similar to Tyler (not quite so bad tho).

Just keep on at it and, after a few weeks more I wouldn't be at all surprised if symptoms got much worse.
 

Not only that, the first time I tried it I DEVELOPED CAVITIES for the first time ever in my life.  Immediately after I added some carbs back in, I felt better, breath smelled better, and the caries began to shrink (just 1 tiny dot on 1 tooth now).  But for some people it works great.

I didn't develop caries during my zero-carb trials but I did notice that my teeth were definitely becoming a lot less stronger than usual(not as stark white as before as well etc., and looser. it was pretty clear that if I managed to continue for much longer(assuming none of the other symptoms destroyed me first), my teeth would eventually end up as unhealthy and damaged as they were in my raw-dairy-filled days.

Also, random question, what animal sources contain potassium?  I was just thinking about that today.   

Potassium is much more common in fruits and other plant-foods. However, there are some examples given of animal foods with sufficient potassium, namely, sardines/pilchard and veal:-

http://www.weightlossforall.com/potassium-rich-food.htm

Avoid veal like the plague. The very nature of veal means that it has to be raised in a very unhealthy environment re nutrition etc. Better to stick to raw beef.

[TylerDurden]

That said, everyone should be able to shun plant foods without ill effect for at least months on end; and if not, they would be out of the gene pool back in paleo times (times that no plant foods were ever found at human sites by the way). 

Re the gene-pool comment:- That I would naturally disagree with for many reasons, some more obvious than others. A very high proportion of my own DNA happens to be from the "Upper, Palaeolithic" genotype, aka  the "Cro-Magnon" who lived in Europe in the Palaeolithic(my father was a more extreme example thereof). This explains, IMO, why I'm so sensitive to dairy products, but given my own health-problems re zero-carb, I rather doubt my illustrious ancestors of that period avoided all carbs for ages at a time, especially given that they were opportunists(and last I checked, there's no evidence of mass extinction of most plant-foods in the palaeolithic(LOL!) , only evidence of extinction of Palaeolithic megafauna at various stages.

At any rate, the notion that plant-foods were never or hardly consumed in the Palaeolithic is highly dubious at best. For one thing, many palaeoanthropologists have pointed out that evidence re Palaeolithic diets is extremely inconclusive, not only because tribes from different areas practised widely different diets to each other, but also evidence of bones in the form of fossils is a hell of a lot easier to come by than evidence of plants as seeds of fruits and the like are unlikely to be found at any particular site due to being easily scattered and are less easily able to be preserved than bone-fossils. That said, despite the greater difficulty in obtaining evidence of plants in archaeological sites, there are several studies showing , clearly, that plant-foods were consumed in reasonable quantities during the Palaeolithic(eg:-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH8-4SH1GWS-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e9fb233ee48e248f6c98f55133fd424a

Evidence of plant-consumption in the Middle-Palaeolithic era:-

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=470712

and plant-food consumption among the Neanderthals:-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH8-465N902-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=98d6936519d2786e36f13f718f45ee23

Here's the point made about how evidence of organic matter, but especially remains of plants, is extremely perishable and unlikely to survive the millenia:-

"The archaeological evidence is especially weak, as many organic materials, especially plants, do not survive well, and are therefore invisible in the archaeological record" taken from:-

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v56/n12/full/1601646a.html

Another obvious point to make is that while plant-foods were unlikely to form a substantial part of a Palaeolithic diet in areas like the Arctic, areas closer to the Equator such as the Middle-East/Africa etc. etc. would all have seen much higher consumption of plant-foods, by comparison to more northerly climes.

As regards bones, it's unrealistic to consider eating them raw - I mean, since when would Palaeo peoples before the advent of cooking ever consider eating the bones of mammoths and the like. They would just break their teeth on them. I'm aware that you really are referring to bone-stocks which are cooked and contain hefty amounts of heat-created toxins, thus more than countering any possible benefit from consuming them.

[Raw Kyle]

I know it's not a matter of keto adaption as I am FULLY keto adapted at less than 30g, usually less than 15g every day (for a good 4 months now

Is there a definitive carb amount that has been shown to induce keto-adaptation? I don't know anything about it but I would assume that any amount of overt carbs would keep your body from producing the maximum amount of mitochondria and digestive enzymes for fueling on fat only.

[Raw Kyle]

so what about pemmican (lean dehydrated at 95 and fat rendered as low as possible which I believe is 200ish)?  how do you feel after eating it?  perfect food or a cooked 'cheat' based on how you feel afterward?

I feel more thirsty eating pemmican for obvious reasons of it being a dehydrated food. Also I notice that it seems to take a bit longer to digest than raw meat and fat which also makes sense. Both of those effects seem to make perfect sense to me as they address to two main ways pemmican is different than raw, the lack of water and the lack of enzymes and bacteria.