Author Topic: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??  (Read 104011 times)

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Offline pioneer

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #125 on: July 23, 2010, 06:44:25 am »
When we dream of our best meals it always turns out to be some animal feast.



haha yeah, and we caveman didnt draw bananas or apples in caves, we drew big mammoths and other animals we hunted. Obviousely animal was the primary concern when it came to fuel.
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Offline klowcarb

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #126 on: July 23, 2010, 07:07:05 am »
I believe humans are optimally carnivores, but can be omnivores. We are omnivores closest on a spectrum to carnivore. We are furthest from herbivore.

Offline PaleoPhil

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #127 on: July 23, 2010, 08:26:21 am »
Umm no... our digestive tract resembles that of an omnivore, not that of a carnivore.

Yet there are animals such the maned wolf that doesn't do well on an all-meat diet even though he seems to be a carnivore. The distinction isn't as easy as you think - carnivore vs. herbivore. That's why the whole thing is so damn confusing.

Hans: So, a carnivore which can eat, and may sometimes eat vegetable matter, is not a carnivore but an omnivore, even though it's a carnivore?

No.... no idea where you got that from...
There is some truth in what both of you are saying. There is a long-running debate both within the dietary community and among scientists over whether humans should be classified as carnivores or omnivores. In my icon caption is the term "facultative carnivore", which is what a growing number of scientists and lay people think humans are, but "omnivore" is still more commonly applied to humans. Facultative carnivores are basically carnivores that eat more plants than the occasional grass or herb (example: canids). Just because an animal eats some plants doesn't automatically make it an omnivore.

Google (and even Wikipedia at times) are your friends. The first hit on "carnivore" says this:

"Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are considered obligate carnivores while those that also consume non-animal food are considered facultative carnivores.[2] Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from the more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant to animal material that would distinguish a facultative carnivore from an omnivore, or an omnivore from a facultative herbivore, for that matter.[3] A carnivore that sits at the top of the foodchain is an apex predator." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore

So this is one of the main reasons why the topic is so confusing and so hotly debated--there's NO set distinction between facultative carnivore and omnivore. It's more a philosophical distinction than an objective one. Omnivore is such a vague and confusing term that some scientists have dispensed with it. However, certain animals do tend to be popularly thought of as omnivores, at least in a de facto sense, if not in a morphological one.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the terms carnivore and omnivore have multiple meanings depending on what is being described: taxonomy, morphology or diet. The same animal can have different designations among these categories. For example, the giant panda is labeled as a carnivore for taxonomy and morphology purposes, but as an herbivore for describing what it regularly eats.

I don't want to get directly involved in taking a position in the debate (my caption is meant only to indicate how I live and how my body seems to function, not necessarily what I think the optimal WOE is for all or what the precise morphological label should be for humans), as I've already explored this issue quite a bit in other threads and I'm not seeing anything new in this thread on it. Plus this discussion should be probably be continued at one of the threads dedicated to the topic, or a new thread, as it is starting to hijack this thread. I just thought I would be well suited to explain facultative carnivory, given my icon caption. :)
« Last Edit: July 23, 2010, 08:44:30 am by PaleoPhil »
>"When some one eats an Epi paleo Rx template and follows the rules of circadian biology they get plenty of starches when they are available three out of the four seasons." -Jack Kruse, MD
>"I recommend 20 percent of calories from carbs, depending on the size of the person" -Ron Rosedale, MD (in other words, NOT zero carbs) http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ogtan
>Finding a diet you can tolerate is not the same as fixing what's wrong. -Tim Steele
Beware of problems from chronic Very Low Carb

Offline Hans89

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #128 on: July 23, 2010, 02:40:58 pm »
Informative post as always, PaleoPhil.

I believe that the carnivore vs. omnivore discussion is in fact somewhat relevant to the topic, as a diet low in carbs will almost inevitably be a carnivorous one, while one high in carbs will be an omnivorous one. One of the benefits that are attributed to a LC/ZC which is mainly a diet of animal flesh is the lack of insulin spikes. If these insulin spikes do not contribute to the development of diabetis, then that benefit isn't actually one. At the same time, insulin spikes are an argument against carbohydrate in the diet, if insulin spikes are benign, though, we may well be supposed to eat a lot of carbs, i. e. be omnivorous rather than carnivorous.

Obviously low carb or zero carb diets make you feel better if you have problems with hypoglycemia / diabetis. That seems to be established. However, it does not remedy the problem. Matt Stone holds that it rather exacerbates it, which is also my experience. I thought if I just stay away from carbs, my body will recover and I will be able to tolerate them better. However, after abstaining from carbs, much lesser quantities of them made me feel bad, which led to my inability to digest any kind of "normal food", basically anything except animal flesh made me miserable.

Because of circumstances I will soon have to eat some "normal" meals, maybe for an extended time, so I got very interested when I read that Matt's HED could make that possible for me without feeling like shit. Trying to eat a diet high in (cooked) starches made me feel bad at first, but now my body seems to tolerate it much better. While previously an intake of any small amount of carbs made me feel off, I can now eat like 500g of carbs a day with diminishing and already minor discomfort. Obviously this makes me wonder if the low carb / carnivorous approach is the correct one.

I think the insulin spike issue might be THE reason why people come to believe that humans should eat animal flesh exclusively or almost exclusively in the first place. All the other explanations come with that and are somewhat stretching the facts in order to give the humans as pure animal flesh eaters theory more of a theoretical basis.

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #129 on: July 23, 2010, 03:23:58 pm »
I'll share my experience.

When I grew up on high carb all my life, I thought that shaking hands and extreme hunger before major meals was a NORMAL thing.

It was only when I tasted a low carb diet did I realize that those where hypoglycemic episodes I experienced all my life.

I did not know any better in the old days because I never experienced having steady energy with low carb.

So when I make mistakes with my diet and I go a high carb day and I experience a hypoglycemic episode, it makes me feel terrible and irritable because I now know that hypoglycemia episodes suck and are not normal.
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Offline pioneer

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #130 on: July 23, 2010, 09:59:37 pm »




 Obviously this makes me wonder if the low carb / carnivorous approach is the correct one.


You mean it makes you wonder if the carnivorous diet is right for you? Right? Because I sure as hell know that I and many others fair just fine on the carnivorous diet. I for one, unlike you, dont really feel like shit eating cooked starches, so I am doing this solely for health purposes, not depending on how I feel after a meal. Its the same thing as saying you dont feel like shit after smoking a cigarette, but that doesnt mean the cigarettes wont accumulate toxins and cause cancer over time. People say that stuff all the time, "well I dont feel that bad so I dont need to change my diet". Thats a load of bologna, and just because you dont feel like shit doesnt mean your body isnt wreaking havoc on the inside.

I respect your interest in how insulin spikes may or may not cause insulin resistance, however this whole topic doesnt really tell me more than I already know. Even if insulin spikes dont cause insulin resistance, so what? We know the difference between macro nutrients and how they rise insulin. And, we know that cooked high carbohydrate diets cause type two diabetes because they directly correlate to type two.
Fat= some or zero effect on raising insulin
protein= some effect on raising insulin, after gluconeogenesis, both inslin and glucagon go up, indicating a blood sugar spike, but glucagon balances the insulin
sugar= much effect on raising insulin

Scientists studied the avg insulin level of a certain age group, and other hormones over 50 years ago. Guess what, insulin was much much lower. Forgive me for not remembering the study's name, I need to find it. Today, that same age brackets insulin level is much higher than it used to be over 50 years ago. SO what gives? are high carbohydrate diets the cause? Well, we know that with the help of industrialized factory farming, we americans nationally and annually eat 15 times more sugar than we used to according to the new york times. Also, the ratio of fat to sugar decreased very much. Since 1900, fat barely increased at all, maybe 2 or 3 times what it was, even with the rise in population. So the real correlation between a certain macronutrient and type two/ insulin resistance has already been established. It is cooked carbohydrates. Science does not know whether or not raw carbohydrates will cause type two diabetes because there has never been tests on it, but what is known is that many raw frugarians, among other issues incured type two diabetes, so apparently one can get type two from a raw fruit diet. Science knows excess carbohydrates causes type two diabetes and insulin resistance. Maybe the insulin spikes dont cause insulin resistance, maybe they do. However, that does not exempt the fact that a high carbohydrate diet causes insulin resistance.
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Offline dsohei

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #131 on: July 24, 2010, 02:02:25 am »
pioneer and others, do you think all carbs are the same, or that perhaps different carbs are processed differently within the body? i know that they are all sugar, but there is a difference between a sweet potatoe and molasses.

low carb does make me feel better in the short term, but i feel i need some carb refeeding to produce serotonin.
thoughts?

Offline goodsamaritan

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #132 on: July 24, 2010, 06:59:55 am »
The are all different.
I don't look at carbs as carbs.
I look at the food itself.
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Offline klowcarb

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #133 on: July 24, 2010, 07:09:36 am »
Hans' argument is not scientific but psychological. He was doing great on very low carb, and in fact, his body rewarded him by making him sick when he ate junk, i.e. carbs. But he WANTED to be "normal" and eat "normal" people food, which is of course, rubbish. Since he WANTED to eat these "normal" foods that make others look fat, skinny fat and gross, he justified a NEED for carbs. Thus he justified that he NEEDED carbs so that he could tolerate the junk when he ate it. That makes sense. If you want to eat junk and be mediocre, might as well eat that which makes you mediocre. You are, after all, what you eat.  :D

Offline PaleoPhil

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #134 on: July 24, 2010, 07:28:54 am »
Informative post as always, PaleoPhil.
Thanks!

Quote
I believe that the carnivore vs. omnivore discussion is in fact somewhat relevant to the topic, as a diet low in carbs will almost inevitably be a carnivorous one, while one high in carbs will be an omnivorous one. One of the benefits that are attributed to a LC/ZC which is mainly a diet of animal flesh is the lack of insulin spikes. If these insulin spikes do not contribute to the development of diabetis, then that benefit isn't actually one.
That's a false assumption in my case. I've already listed my numerous other problems beyond diabetes that were rapidly reduced from the start by cutting down on Paleo carbs that I had thought were "healthy" for me based on the claims of people like you. If you're interested in what some of them are, feel free to check out my journal.

Quote
At the same time, insulin spikes are an argument against carbohydrate in the diet, if insulin spikes are benign, though, we may well be supposed to eat a lot of carbs, i. e. be omnivorous rather than carnivorous.
By "supposed to eat" do you mean what will promote the modern human-invented goals of optimal health and longevity, or do you mean the typical diet of an animal in the indigenous wild habitat of its origin (which doesn't necessarily promote "optimal" health)?

Quote
Obviously low carb or zero carb diets make you feel better if you have problems with hypoglycemia / diabetis. That seems to be established. However, it does not remedy the problem. Matt Stone holds that it rather exacerbates it
Maybe in the long run he's right, maybe not. I don't find "Matt Stone says so" to be a convincing argument.

Quote
which is also my experience.
That's something I take more seriously than arguing from authority--someone speaking from personal experience.

Quote
I thought if I just stay away from carbs, my body will recover and I will be able to tolerate them better. However, after abstaining from carbs, much lesser quantities of them made me feel bad, which led to my inability to digest any kind of "normal food", basically anything except animal flesh made me miserable.
As Lex and I have said repeatedly, if going without plant carbs causes any problems, we'll just gradually reintroduce some--which I have actually already tried (with mostly, but not all, negative results so far) because I WANT TO EAT CARBS (how many times do I have to explain that?). Heck, I ate a small handful of red grapes (man do I love firm red and black grapes!) and blueberries at the cafeteria at work today (I'll just try to offset that small amount of plant carbs by taking a bit more zinc and magnesium and brushing my teeth more thoroughly, to try to avoid potential small amount of acne, dental crud, poor sleep, muscle tension, ...). Plus, for whatever reason, no one ever seems to acknowledge that Lex and I eat some animal carbs from liver and eggs. If carbs are helpful for the health, then animal carbs should help too, right? So don't worry about me.

I have also explained repeatedly that my improvements from cutting carbs occurred right from the start and that trying to increase them again in the very early going (to confirm that it was the carb reduction that helped) produced the same negative symptoms then that they produce now. Again and again I've explained that my symptoms from carbs didn't begin only after I'd been VLC for an extended period, but people continue to imply that assumption. My words seem to be falling on deaf ears, as it were. It's as if folks are more interested in arguing or in promoting Matt Stone's ideas than they are in understanding anything I've written. Will you please acknowledge that you have read that I had problems with plant carbs from the start and that I didn't only develop major problems from plant carbs after I'd been VLC for an extended period and that you understand this? Thanks.

I am already aware that ZC/VLC can eventually further reduce one's ability to handle carbs, probably due at least in part to dying off of carb-eating gut flora. I haven't noticed this yet, but perhaps that's because I'm VLC instead of ZC, or perhaps not enough time has elapsed. This potential issue is one reason why I've been trying to find carbs I can handle beyond liver and eggs. I get flack from Katelyn for experimenting with carbs at all, and I get these lectures from folks like you on the other side about the dangers of VLC/ZC. I'm walking the middle path between the two extremes and so far it's been going rather well, though I still think there's room for improvement and I like keeping an open mind.  

Quote
Because of circumstances I will soon have to eat some "normal" meals, maybe for an extended time, so I got very interested when I read that Matt's HED could make that possible for me without feeling like shit.
Yes, that's another reason I've given to Katelyn and other zealous ZCers for why I experiment with plant carbs--for social and convenience reasons. My past experiments with cooked tubers didn't go well, but the example of the Kitavans did spark my curiosity months ago, so I've been tinkering with cabbage and ginger and an occasional radish or two (all three of which range between 83-86% of calories as carbs) and thinking about trying more of other starch-containing plants that are edible without cooking or drying, such as scallion, garlic, wasabi, and bok choy (I don't handle onions well, though). I was planning on buying one or two of these veggies on my next food shopping trip. I hope that will help get the pro-carb zealots off my back (unfortunately, it will likely get Katelyn back on my back again--good thing she's light ;) ). I'm not convinced there's an absolute necessity to eat cooked tubers (after all, no hominid ate cooked tubers for the millions of years before cooking developed), but I'm not against trying them again some day in the future as well.

Quote
Trying to eat a diet high in (cooked) starches made me feel bad at first, but now my body seems to tolerate it much better. While previously an intake of any small amount of carbs made me feel off, I can now eat like 500g of carbs a day with diminishing and already minor discomfort.
And I have read numerous people report that gradually re-introducing carbs into their diet rapidly resolved the problems they had from ZC. If their reports of rapid benefits from plant carbs are true, then there are no worries for me--if I develop any problems from VLC I can just gradually reintroduce carbs into my diet, as supported by the claims of the omnivores themselves. So relax and enjoy yourself and don't worry so much about trying to convince every VLCer/ZCer to quickly change their ways before they've even developed any new problems.

Quote
Obviously this makes me wonder if the low carb / carnivorous approach is the correct one.
I think everyone's different and human beings are more adaptable than most animals, don't you? Somehow both the Chukchi and the Kitavans seem to do fairly well on very different diets. Whether either could do even better on the other's diet is an open question.

Quote
I think the insulin spike issue might be THE reason why people come to believe that humans should eat animal flesh exclusively or almost exclusively in the first place.
As I've mentioned countless times, my reason for doing VLC is because it is what has worked best for me (see my signature). To each his/her own.

Quote
All the other explanations come with that and are somewhat stretching the facts in order to give the humans as pure animal flesh eaters theory more of a theoretical basis.
I'm really losing patience with the endless repetition of this sort of assumption by multiple zealous carb proponents. Remember what happens when we assume?

I'll share my experience.

When I grew up on high carb all my life, I thought that shaking hands and extreme hunger before major meals was a NORMAL thing.

It was only when I tasted a low carb diet did I realize that those where hypoglycemic episodes I experienced all my life.
Same here, GS.

...low carb does make me feel better in the short term, but i feel i need some carb refeeding to produce serotonin.
thoughts?
I've noticed that people who eat mod/high carbs or dairy tend to say things like "I feel I need...". Coincidence? I don't know. For myself, I don't do things because I feel I need to do them, but for multiple rational reasons--such as because self-experimentation (trying the food in my diet AND trying a diet that does NOT include the food) has demonstrated them to work for me and because rational explanations suggest how they could work and why it would be healthy in the long run. I look for convergences of suggestive factors--my experience + logic + science + suggestive commonalities among the experiences of others that make sense in light of the other three categories of factors.
>"When some one eats an Epi paleo Rx template and follows the rules of circadian biology they get plenty of starches when they are available three out of the four seasons." -Jack Kruse, MD
>"I recommend 20 percent of calories from carbs, depending on the size of the person" -Ron Rosedale, MD (in other words, NOT zero carbs) http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ogtan
>Finding a diet you can tolerate is not the same as fixing what's wrong. -Tim Steele
Beware of problems from chronic Very Low Carb

Offline pioneer

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #135 on: July 24, 2010, 12:18:29 pm »
pioneer and others, do you think all carbs are the same, or that perhaps different carbs are processed differently within the body? i know that they are all sugar, but there is a difference between a sweet potatoe and molasses.

low carb does make me feel better in the short term, but i feel i need some carb refeeding to produce serotonin.
thoughts?

you get that just the same from gluconeogenesis, also, serotonin is even more better stimulated by fat than sugar, thats why depressive people do better with more fat.
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Offline rawlion

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #136 on: July 24, 2010, 10:43:01 pm »
not really because you can survive entirely on meat, but you can't survive entirely on vegetables. Steffannson proved that at bellevue hospital.

Are you sure,mate? Have you ever heard about the experiments with all potato diet?

"One landmark experiment carried out in 1925 on two healthy adults, a man 25 years old and a woman 28 years old, had them live on a diet primarily of white potatoes for 6 months (A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories -- pure fats, a few fruits, coffee, and tea -- were supplemented in their diet). The report stated, “They did not tire of the uniform potato diet and there was no craving for change.” Even though they were both physically active (especially the man) they were described as, “…in good health on a diet in which the nitrogen (protein) was practically solely derived from the potato.”
« Last Edit: July 24, 2010, 10:53:57 pm by rawlion »
It’s time to Eat Like An Animal!

Offline dsohei

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #137 on: July 25, 2010, 02:07:59 am »
you get that just the same from gluconeogenesis, also, serotonin is even more better stimulated by fat than sugar, thats why depressive people do better with more fat.

1- how much (extra?) protein is required to simulate carbs from gluconeogenesis?
2- which fats stimulate serotonin production best without causing lethargy and drowsiness?

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #138 on: July 25, 2010, 05:14:23 am »
less-saturated fats?
5-10% off your first purchase at http://www.iherb.com/ with dicount code: KIS978

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #139 on: July 25, 2010, 07:30:03 am »
Are you sure,mate? Have you ever heard about the experiments with all potato diet?

"One landmark experiment carried out in 1925 on two healthy adults, a man 25 years old and a woman 28 years old, had them live on a diet primarily of white potatoes for 6 months (A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories -- pure fats, ....

This one cracks me up. Pure fats are critical for good nutrition, not "empty calories." Do you believe that fats are "empty calories", Rawlion? I don't have a problem with people trying a diet heavy in cooked tubers. If that's what you want to do, go for it and report your experience. However, like others I am a bit concerned about how your diet seems to jump all over the place in wild extremes. Most troubling is the 6 day fast you mentioned recently.

From that study: "THE potato is a very important constituent of the diet of many civilised nations, and it may be considered to furnish, with bread, the bulk of the food of the rural population of such countries as Poland and Russia. There is little doubt that the Polish or Russian peasant is nevertheless very healthy and able to do extremely hard work under trying conditions." Sorry, but diets rich in potatoes and bread don't work well for me. YMMV. Plus, I'll take the health of Kitavans, Zhu/whasi, Chukchi, Evenks and other HGs and pastoralists over that of Russian peasant farmers any day. Anyone who has read this forum for more than a few months should be aware that HGs tend to have lower rates of chronic disease than peasant farmers.

On the other hand, many hunter-gatherer peoples encountered in modern times were found to eat some form of cooked tuber and do well healthwise, such as the famous Kitavans I mentioned. Plus, digging sticks for yams have been found dating back to at least 40,000 B.C. (Timeline of dietary shifts in the human line of evolution, www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1c.shtml, though that's also reportedly around the time that human stature and brain size began to decline, IIRC). The problem is when modern people start carrying this to extremes and make all sorts of false assumptions about the motivations and experiences of those who aren't currently eating a tuber-rich diet, and start lecturing anyone who eats differently than they do about what they should be doing, and even setting themselves up as experts (as Matt Stone seems to be doing).

BTW, re: the biochemistry, I'll reinforce that I wasn't disagreeing with Alphagruis' analysis. It sounds like it matches what KGH has explained in the past. It's just that in the real world, some people like me don't do well when they eat 100g or even 50g of carbs a day, for whatever reason (though I'm still experimenting). Textbook science can be useful, but real world experience is more applicable to real world results than textbook formulas. When real world results don't quite match textbook hypotheses, it's time to go back to the drawing board and try to come up with an explanation. KGH's hypothesis on this was that we who don't fare well on even small amounts of carbs are probably insulin resistant.

Alphagruis and Gary Taubes have also suggested something that I've been experimenting with--that the type of carbs may be the problem. Taubes and others have suggested that maybe fructose is the main problem when it comes to carbs. KGH has even called fruit "tree candy." Fruits are heavily promoted in this forum. I tried fresh, raw organic fruit again and my experience does appear to match the tree candy claim (for me--I'm not applying that to anyone else--others here thrive on them). So other than a tiny occasional fruit cheat, the focus of my recent carb experimentation has been animal and veg carbs (liver, eggs, cabbage, ginger, and other veg). Cooked tubers didn't work well for me in the past, but the tuber-eating HGs and Danny Roddy do have me curious about traditional low-and-slow cooked tubers. I'm even more curious about the predecessors of cooked tubers--starchy veg that is edible raw, though it's hard to eat enough of them to get much carbs.

For the cooked tuber proponents I have a question, why not first try starchy veg that is edible and palatable raw before trying cooked tubers? Is it because it's hard to get much carbs from them? I input seaweed, chicory root, garlic, cabbage, radishes, mixed salad greens, eggs, liver, and kelp into Fitday and it's difficult to get above 2 or 3% (25g/day) of calories as carbs. No wonder these foods don't bother me noticeably.

One of the issues I face is that cooked tubers are fine for people like Stone and Taubes who can handle plentiful butter and dairy. For whatever reason, I continue to have problems with dairy, though less than in the past. So for me that means either eating tubers without butter, which doesn't appeal to me, or frying them. I do occasionally eat french fries at restaurants (though most restaurant fries are too crappy tasting to eat many of) or when my mother makes them (home made are hard to pass up :) ). Is anyone arguing that I should eat french fries or potato chips if that's the only way that dairy-free tubers appeal to me? Before the domestication of animals, Africans obviously ate their tubers without butter. Has anyone tried a more traditional way of processing tubers that produced a product that tasted good? Apparently traditional techniques involved one or more of soaking, sund-drying, pulverizing, low-and-slow baking or boiling.

Another issue for me is I don't like the strange sweetness of American sweet potatoes or yams and don't know how people eat them other than maybe in stews to cut the sweetness (and that means going whole-hog with the cooking), or in pies to give them a more normal-tasting sweetness. It's not like the nice sweetness of fruits. So for me, tubers means either white potatoes or maybe African yams, if they are ever sold in my area (so far I haven't seen them at the tiny Asian markets in my area), or maybe some other tuber I haven't tried yet.  

Still another issue for me is that when I eat too much foods beyond raw meat, fat and organs, the mildly euphoric feeling of well being I get from the latter goes away, and that feeling is not something I want to give up if I don't have to. Does anyone get it from any food other than raw meat, fat and organs? I've never noticed it from any other food.

Other things I'm curious about are, if cooked tubers are such an essential part of the human diet, then how did humans survive and thrive before their introduction and why do they taste like crap without cooking and then adding butter or frying or mixing into stews, whereas meat and fruit taste great raw on their own?

So far, as far as my experience and observations are concerned, there seem to be at least six strikes against cooked tubers:
1) humans and all primates survived and thrived for millions of years without them
2) they taste mediocre to me unless they have something added like butter, salt and black pepper or are cooked in unhealthy ways like high-heat frying (as with french fries and potato chips)
3) not all HGs and traditional peoples eat them even today
4) even HGs that eat them regard them as inferior to honey, meat and fruit
5) they don't give me the mildly euphoric feeling I get from eating raw meat/fat/organs and they actually appear to cancel it out
6) they violate nature's principle of keeping things simple (natural, wild, and unprocessed)

The only thing going for cooked tubers from my perspective that I've seen so far is that some traditional peoples and some modern individuals appear to do well on them and they go back a fair amount of time in human history. However, even there the experiences of modern individuals who do well on them, like Matt Stone and Danny Roddy, are very different from mine. For example, Matt and Danny report being cold on a VLC diet, whereas I got much warmer when I started eating lots of animal fat, and I even get more visible warm steam coming out of my mouth in the winter when I eat more animal fat. Matt's experiences have been so frequently opposite of my own that I quickly lost interest in his blog, despite my early hope that he might have beneficial tips to offer me. I'm not saying that Matt is wrong about everything, just that his experience has been very different from my own, for whatever reason. Matt even eats grains, whereas I've found wheat to be the worst of all foods for me.

And as for the example of traditional peoples who eat tubers, from what I've seen, most moderners who cite their example don't process the tubers in traditional ways. How can they be sure they're getting the same benefits? It seems to me that they've complicated things by introducing new variables and haven't accounted for potential differences in long-term results. The same question that is often posed to carnivores could also be posed to folks who used modern methods to cook and proho knows what damage they might be doing to themselves in the longer run?
« Last Edit: July 25, 2010, 07:41:21 am by PaleoPhil »
>"When some one eats an Epi paleo Rx template and follows the rules of circadian biology they get plenty of starches when they are available three out of the four seasons." -Jack Kruse, MD
>"I recommend 20 percent of calories from carbs, depending on the size of the person" -Ron Rosedale, MD (in other words, NOT zero carbs) http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ogtan
>Finding a diet you can tolerate is not the same as fixing what's wrong. -Tim Steele
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Offline miles

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #140 on: July 25, 2010, 08:05:56 am »
Hey Phil. Have you ever tried having the occasional day where you only eat vegetation, and no meat?

There is a big change in the digestive system, between animal and vegetable. The body will produce lots of hormones to induce the chemical changes, which then need to be flushed out after use. Then the chemicals created need to be changed back/forth as you switch between the two types, and all of this leaves your liver with less energy to do the flushing with, so you will have expired hormones flowing through you system, which could be causing your problems. I think if you leave enough time between switching between vegetable and animal you will be fine. That would be at least a day/24hrs though I would think, if not more...

I could be wrong, but I think you should consider that possibility...
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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #141 on: July 25, 2010, 10:06:00 am »
Hey Phil. Have you ever tried having the occasional day where you only eat vegetation, and no meat?
Yeah, on a couple days where I ran out of meat and eggs. It was pretty lousy. It was unsatisfying and I felt like I didn't eat a real meal, do you know what I mean? I felt worse than usual and my digestion was worse. I had to eat some sugar from honey to settle my stomach. It reminded me of how I felt during my past brief vegetarian experiments, only not as bad because I wan't eating grains and have a better overall level of health now.

I actually handle greens and veg best when I eat them with meats, despite what people say here. Interestingly, Koreans and even chimps often eat their meat with raw greens (leaves). Korean raw meat in lettuce is called ssam. Chimps stuff leaves in their mouths, then put meat in with the leaves, eating the two together.

So eating greens with meats may be a practice that goes back millions of years in human history and I guess I'm not alone.
>"When some one eats an Epi paleo Rx template and follows the rules of circadian biology they get plenty of starches when they are available three out of the four seasons." -Jack Kruse, MD
>"I recommend 20 percent of calories from carbs, depending on the size of the person" -Ron Rosedale, MD (in other words, NOT zero carbs) http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ogtan
>Finding a diet you can tolerate is not the same as fixing what's wrong. -Tim Steele
Beware of problems from chronic Very Low Carb

Offline rawlion

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #142 on: July 25, 2010, 10:41:35 am »
This one cracks me up. Pure fats are critical for good nutrition, not "empty calories." Do you believe that fats are "empty calories", Rawlion?
Well, strictly speaking fats ARE empty calories as they contain very little vitamins and almost no minerals. But it doesn't mean they are nutritionally useless.

However, like others I am a bit concerned about how your diet seems to jump all over the place in wild extremes. Most troubling is the 6 day fast you mentioned recently.
It sounds like as if I had nothing to do and decided to embark on water fast for some self fancied reasons. In fact, this is the result of prolonged zero carbing. During the past several months I've been getting sick, by common standards, at least once every fortnight. And the last cold and strep throat were so severe that I was barely able to even drink water. I had no option but to abstain from foods until I got a little better. And it took me 6 days for the pain to subside.

As for the extremes and consistency... I am still zeroing but with each passing day I am rapidly loosing confidence in this paleo fantasy...
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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #143 on: July 25, 2010, 10:44:21 am »
1- how much (extra?) protein is required to simulate carbs from gluconeogenesis?
2- which fats stimulate serotonin production best without causing lethargy and drowsiness?

1- that depends on the person and their activity level, hormones, cell replacement, health, vitality, and many other variables. It depends upon one's protein requirement, then the extra is converted to sugar and fat. Yes, miles is right, saturated fat stimulate seratonin best, that is why depressed people love eating it. If only they used that as an anti depressant, but then big pharma wouldnt be making money off their BS drugs.
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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #144 on: July 25, 2010, 11:02:28 am »
Well, strictly speaking fats ARE empty calories as they contain very little vitamins and almost no minerals. But it doesn't mean they are nutritionally useless.

So what? you could say the same about protein and carbs as well. I think you got it mixed up. Protein, fat, and carbs are macro nutrients not micro nutrients like vitamins and minerals are. Also, calories is the dumbest way of looking at things, as Im sure you're already realizing this.

Another thing is I dont care whether that potato study was done or not, it still doesnt explain the reason why without protein and fat you DIE. Especially fat is important for normal functioning. Most of us here know, you cant make hormones without fat, girls cant have babies, and guys are infirtile as well. No testosterone, no estrogen, no progesterone = death. Also, your brain would shut down due to the fact that it is primarily composed of cholesterol, that is why so many people on low fat diets get depressed. Science has known for over 50 years that putting someone on a high fat diet immediately reverses depression because of fat's relationships with seratonin, dopamine, and cholesterol. Your immune system shuts down without fat and protein. Im sorry mate but a low sex drive and low recovery ability doesnt sound right for me. Maybe you think you can handle having low testosterone, but I cant. All that study proves is that the human body is amazing in its ability to survive for a period of time. Repeat that same study for 3 years, and everyone in it would die. Also, we dont even know the other variables, the people in the study could have already been extremely fat and muscular giving their body nutrients from itself, and feeding off itself.

Anyone with just a little knowledge of biology and nutrition knows that protein can convert to fat and sugar, fat can convert to ketones, and carbs can convert to fat. However carbs cannot convert to protein, so anyone on a potato diet would have extreme protein deficiency. And the fat they obtain from the potatoes doesnt even come close to the fat they would get from actual fat.

Someone on a potato diet would be bloated all the time due to the fact that carbs retain much water. They would be hungry all the time, because no leptin signal= you never get full or satisfied. So they would just keep eating and eating and not be satisfied.
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Offline rawlion

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #145 on: July 25, 2010, 11:05:36 am »
1- that depends on the person and their activity level, hormones, cell replacement, health, vitality, and many other variables. It depends upon one's protein requirement

No, it mainly depends upon glucose requirement for brain and CNS and whether you are keto adapted or not.
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Offline Cinna

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #146 on: July 25, 2010, 05:53:24 pm »
I actually handle greens and veg best when I eat them with meats, despite what people say here. Interestingly, Koreans and even chimps often eat their meat with raw greens (leaves). Korean raw meat in lettuce is called ssam. Chimps stuff leaves in their mouths, then put meat in with the leaves, eating the two together.

So eating greens with meats may be a practice that goes back millions of years in human history and I guess I'm not alone.

PaleoPhil, I'm glad you mentioned this. I haven't tried eating raw greens with raw meat because of what I've read around here, but I'm going to try it out. :)  At least, just based on thought and no personal experimentation yet, I think a bit of raw greens could make eating raw meat more interesting, just as a bit of raw meat could make eating a bunch of raw greens much more interesting. I loved steak salads when I used to eat them...

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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #147 on: July 25, 2010, 06:10:53 pm »
Pioneer: "(A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories -- pure fats, a few fruits, coffee, and tea -- were supplemented in their diet)."
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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #148 on: July 25, 2010, 11:07:48 pm »
Pioneer: "(A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories -- pure fats, a few fruits, coffee, and tea -- were supplemented in their diet)."

Ah, then the study was bullshit. When an experiment is performed, you take 1 variable and compare it to another, or you single out a variable and observe how it reacts. Neither were done in the study for the potato diet.
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Re: Matt Stone HED - Insulin spikes do NOT cause insulin resistance??
« Reply #149 on: July 25, 2010, 11:13:26 pm »
No, it mainly depends upon glucose requirement for brain and CNS and whether you are keto adapted or not.

We are both right. I hope you know the brain mainly runs on fat, science has confirmed it, it is a proven fact. 2/3 on fat to be precise. Takes about 1 week on average to get keto adapted, as I have studied many peoples results using ketostix. But yes it does depend upon protein requirement as well. If my cells need more repair then you due to more exercise, I obviously will need more protein.
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