How did you end up RP?

[subfarm]

I'm just curious how you guys ended up RP... Seems like most of us had some sort of medical odyssey that delivered us to it. For me, it was gastrointestinal upsets and general inflammation. I thought "maybe I should eat like my ancestors, they lived to reproduce - they must have been doing something right." So being of Irish and Lakota descent, I set on my way. I learned that before the potato was introduced in the 17th century- the Irish consumed a lot of meats, seafood and berries. I couldn't find much information on vegetables, so I ended up eating a ton of strawberries, black berries and animal foods. The Lakota diet was pretty much identical- meat, assorted fruits and berries. Eventually, I stopped eating vegetables entirely, and I always thought beans were poisonous. I eventually adopted the idea that if I have to cook something to make it edible or palatable, I shouldn't eat it.

So.... what made you do it?

[TylerDurden]

Well, I had had 1 or 2 minor issues as a child(constantly blocked up nose, warts and the like). Then, over the years, I started getting numerous health-problems due to adrenal burnout etc.. I started experimenting with diets in my early 20s, veering gradually towards raw vegan/fruitarian diets by way of the Hay Diet etc etc. I had discovered by that point that I got increasingly painful stomach-aches after eating any (cooked) animal foods whatsoever, which was what drove me in that direction. Anyway, I discovered the Primal Diet and started healing , only for all gains to disappear completely as soon as I started introducing raw dairy into my diet. 6 months into this Primal Diet misadventure, I went completely rawpalaeo and started healing properly. It took me c. 2-3 years to get rid of my various health-problems.


I am dubious of claimed links between ancestors' diets and oneself. I was always told that I should be fine on raw dairy, due to some Scandinavian descent, but that was not the case.

[laterade]

My would-be big brother was not born with kidneys, so did not make it. My little brother has had many strokes starting from very young, he was also diagnosed asperger's syndrome(high IQ version of autism), along with myostenia gravis(degenerating muscle tissue). So from a young age I realized that some of this sh*t just ain't right.
I was lucky. But since my parents were so exposed to doctors, it was only a matter of time before my unruly self was diagnosed ADHD, and put on drugs. When I was 15, I started using the internet and realized what bunk I was taking, and how it was making me into the typical ritalin kid, having violent thoughts among other manic behavior. At the same time some of my friends had started smoking cannabis at parties so I joined in and found the most wonderful herb ever. Told the doctors to keep the drugs and started hitting the pipe on a regular basis. This was great for momentary self control, until I started falling into the party scene and drinking a lot and eating bunk "food". I was diagnosed with Acid reflux at 16, started with the USDA diet and made things worse. I became interested in the fire department and started training with them, when I started truly taxing my body I could not take it. I could perform as one of the top candidates, but I went home exhausted and had hit a ceiling with my strength. I went veggie due to frustration and lack of desire for meat, I truly think it was a good idea for the time, for cleansing purposes. That stopped working 3 months later and I spent the next 2 months coping with things like cacao, and I reverted back to cannabis which I quit to get ready for fire dept. In may I stumbled across AV's Doctors episode and decided it was worth a try. Life has never been better.

[subfarm]

Tyler- I avoid dairy like the plague. It has never sat well with me. I always imagined that dairy is what farmers and the like consumed to survive when they couldn't afford to slaughter their livestock. I'll occasionally eat goat cheese... very very sparingly, like once every two or three years, and I almost always feel like a heap of trash afterwards.

As for the ancestor thing, I took a lot of that information with a grain of salt. The Irish consumed a good bit of animal milk out of necessity, and ate some grains. None of those things I will touch. What really piqued my curiosity about the ancestor thing was Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. I stumbled upon it when I was younger, and found it intensely fascinating. So later on, when I was having health issues I kind of read back into it, and it inspired me to apply some of ancestry to my own diet.  So I guess my point is, that eating like my family ate generations upon generations ago really just gave me a jumping off point.


After all of the research I had been doing I just woke up one day and was finally sick and tired of feeling like garbage, threw all the food in my kitchen away, and started getting fresh produce every day based on what looked and smelled nice. I later replaced cooked meat with raw meats. This was really before I had an earnest interest in the chemistry of sustenance, so I just went on a hunch- it paid off.

[bharminder]

I realized many conditions in life were related to diet. Energy levels, personality, motivation, drive, vitality, stability of the mind, etc. could all be influenced by the type of diet one eats.


I went from typical SAD (Standard American Diet) of high grains like pasta, rice, bread, and cooked meats and veggies, nuts,  with some raw fruits ........ to a high raw vegetarian diet with some raw eggs and canned fish 1-2 times per week. I tried eating lots of fruits but my teeth started to hurt and I didn't feel too good after eating 6 or 7 apples or 8 oranges or 10 bananas. Nonetheless I kept the high fruit diet for a while....then eventually cut down the fruits and upped the vegetables.


High vegetable diet did not provide with me enough calories for energy and I felt lethargic, but overall decent.

Eventually since I ate raw eggs it was not a far stretch to eat other fresh raw meats and that seemed logically far healthier than the canned fish I'd eat once or twice a week. Thus now I eat a omnivore diet and I try to balance the fruits and vegetables with the meats and not rely too much on grains, but I still eat those sometimes. I emphasize quality not quantity, and variety for both nutrient and taste reasons.

[raw-al]

I was a 24 +-year Ayurvedic vege. The modern version of Ayurveda that is, vege, not the original omnivorous.

Being a certified practitioner (although not employed as such) I have a decent idea of how to keep myself well and as such haven't had any illness acute or chronic in memory since I started except for small amounts of rotten gas...   which isn't an illness, just a pain in the a#&.

I avoided meat, as meditation and spiritual progress was/is my goal or whatever you want to call it.

One day I read a post by v Pinto regarding eating meat raw or something like that. I became curious and discovered that he and others had witnessed what seemed like "miracle cures" from illnesses that sounded to me like vata issues. Vinny was obviously VP or PV either in prakriti (birth doshic vitiation) or vikruti (short term or current doshic imbalance) and since this is my battle I became curious.

My teacher a Vaidya (Ayurvedic Doc.) had indicated once in a lecture that Ayurveda had it's roots in prehistory when people noticed that certain foods and minerals etc had effects on the body and that what you consumed them they healed or hurt you depending on what you were like in the first place.

Then they started noticing that when people left the hills (where they lived off the land as hunter gatherers) and started living in the valleys as farmers, and in villages and also storing their food (grains) they started getting illnesses. They then decided to write down the previously oral traditions into what is now codified as Ayurveda. (The main book "Caraka Samhita" was written about the time of Christ.)

Anyhoo I then heard about Aajonus, bought his book and decided to try it. Really it was curiosity not problems. I disagree with AV in one main thing. He says that having an illness periodically is important to flush the body, reset the clock whatever. That's a crock. Other than that I like the diet.

I do not agree with some of his assertions such as; everyone can drink milk and the other things he prescribes. That's in some cases dangerous.

[Josh]

I had a few minor health issues and started looking after my diet as part of that. I started eating a 'balanced' diet along with shitloads of quality supplements and tbh felt amazing.

I had started reading health and life extension forums figuring that these would have the best information.

It's a very complicated world and for every person that recommends a supplement, someone will pull out a study that says it's useless or harmful.

I was always interested in paleo (cooked) and tried it in a haphazard way before getting ill. A big debate on life extension forums is whether it's best to eat a high fat paleo diet and get the benefits of low carb, but accepting age's etc from cooked food....or go for a higher carb diet and get low age's but accept the negative effects of insulin response.

I found this forum looking for an answer to a question about adapting to paleo, and had a look round. It seems like the ultimate answer to diet, although as Lex says it may not be the best in life extension, but I'm more interested in 'healthspan' how long I can do what I want.

And you don't have to get involved in that headspinning supplement scene.

[yuli]

Yeah the Price research is VERY interesting, I was actually reading that last night.
Does anyone know what was the diet of early Siberian people or have any links? I am curious what my ancestors diet was...

[RawZi]

    I think in a youtube video Siberians hunt reindeer and salt the blood and drink it raw onsite before cutting further into the carcass.  Some guy was traveling there for a TV show, showing their everyday life and trying their foods.  The people seemed to have calm natures/tempers and were blissful looking besides having to bundle up warm.

[Nation]

I was raw vegan and not doing well, i didn't even know some people ate raw meat. One day i'm on youtube watching raw food videos and this woman was raving about raw meat, she was pretty convincing so i gave it a try.
Here's the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CECwj-t-Cpk

[subfarm]

Just to be clear Yuli, I'm not advocating any crazy ancestor diet or anything, it was mainly a springboard for me, and it's incredibly fascinating to learn about.

[TylerDurden]

Yeah the Price research is VERY interesting, I was actually reading that last night.
Does anyone know what was the diet of early Siberian people or have any links? I am curious what my ancestors diet was...

The Nenets of Siberia eat diets consisting mostly of raw meats and blood, though they also eat some boiled meats too. Given the Arctic nature of Siberia, I am sure that peoples living there always ate diets extremely high in animal foods, much of them raw, with raw plant foods mainly being only eaten in the summer in relatively small amounts.

[goodsamaritan]

I continued to evolve my diet for my needs and challenges.

From SAD which made me obese.
From vegetarian - which was malnourishing.
 
To healing requirements: I wanted 100% raw because I wanted to stop liver flushing, I wanted zero liver stones, my body kept producing liver stones as long as I ate cooked stuff.

To raw vegan - which was deathly malnourishing
To raw fruitarian - which was deathly malnourishing as well
To raw wai diet - which was just super great after fruitarian ( got bored with sea food and eggs )
To raw primal diet Aajonus - but raw dairy wasn't working for me

So I dropped the dairy and it became:

To raw paleo diet ( super thank you forever to Geoff Purcell at AllExperts and this forum )
Then learned about high amounts of raw fat.

[miles]

Started with barefoot running, then paleo with cooked meat, then gradually cooked my meat less, then had raw meat.

[donrad]

I started with the basic philosophy that our bodies are perfectly adapted to a prehistoric diet through millions of years of evolution. Billions actually. Prehistoric food growing, gathering, and hunting conditions  no longer exhist on earth. Revolutionary changes during the past few thousand years went far to quickly for our bodies to adapt and evolve.  My nutrition research goes farther back than our recent ancestors or even paleo. I make feble attempts to try and recreat the past but it is a constant challange. Organic garden helps and buying directly from grass based farmers/ranchers. Hunting is good. Organ meats are great.

I think you are on the right track eating raw grass-fed meat and wild seafood with small wild type berries, nuts, and seeds. Some wild type root vegetables are probably ok. I consume fermented dairy but am aware it is not optimal. We are designed to have raw milk for the first couple of years in life if not longer.

[sabertooth]

I was long aware of the atrocious quality of the grocery store food I grew up off of, I saw the last two generations of my family stricken by conditions that never exested in my relatives that grew up in the mountains. I was witness to the mass drugging of children that became epidemic in the 90s, as well as the saturation of the food supply with corn and soy and GMOs. I see how ill many people who eat suppermarket foods are, and the healthfood vegetarians aren't much better. I began to link my healthproblems and those of the masses around me to poor environment and low food quality, if not out right poisoning. Sadly I went the conventional path at first, and started to eat salads and vegtables, yogurt, granola, potatoes, whole grains, olive oil, and many other recomended health foods. I got worse and soon realized that this food did not provide the health and healing I needed. I finally stumbled across a man with ceilac disease and he directed me to the Weston price foundation. I then found out about the guts and grease diet of the native Americans , and then found AV and this forum from some link by the Good ameritan. I am lucky to have found this place, because I believe the type of diabetes and chronic immune suppression that I was developing would not have healed any other way. I went cold Turkey no grains, starches, non paleo foods, into a ketgenic raw animal food diet with high meat, and over the last 11 months have experienced a wellness that is truly a miracle.

[subfarm]

sabertooth- Getting diagnosed with celiac disease was really what made me question what agribusiness and the american govt tell us- the food pyramid and the like. When learned how prevalent CD actually is, it really made me think about the food guidelines and most RDAs as a scam. I really felt lied to.
Donrad- I was breastfed until I was about 3, that's all the milk I need 

[sabertooth]

I have been happily gluten free. 11 servings of grain a day would kill someone with even mild glutten tolerance issues, and yet there are no disclaimers or warnings in the mainstream. Even before this diet I had found some Jewel of wisdom that have helped me protect my children. There is evidence that children cant tolerate grains until 18 months, there are new studies that prove that even rice cereal is not good to give before the first year. I held firm on the basic criteria. My children where not fed grains for the first year, and I still limit their bread intake and will soak everthing in lamb fat to keep them from filling up on grains. There are simple steps that can be taken to at least help develop a stronger and more grain tolerant population. There are so many sick children who like myself was fed pasteurized apple juice and rice cereal as the first foods, my wifes first baby food was chocolate icecream. I fed my children egg yolks and goats milk, my youngest eats fat trimmings, marrow,oysters, and blueberries for finger food, and along with a special formula I believe I may have found a way to raise children who can tolerate some of the problem foods, and still thrive. I am blessed with being so cursed, for if I wasn't so ill I would have never been driven to learn what I have learned and my children would be suffering from store bought formula, rice cereal, cooked fruit jars, antibiotics, vaccines and everthing else I was forced to endure.

[laterade]

Donrad- I was breastfed until I was about 3, that's all the milk I need  

Whoa! In my experience of working with children I have found that the general poopulation looks down of prolonging breastfeeding.
I disagree with this idea that it should end at 6 months, the ones who continue, even to just a year old, are built much more strong and resilient.
Give your mom a high five for me!

[SteakNchop]

I was breastfed till I was almost three years old.

[yuli]

There are simple steps that can be taken to at least help develop a stronger and more grain tolerant population. There are so many sick children who like myself was fed pasteurized apple juice and rice cereal as the first foods, my wifes first baby food was chocolate icecream. I fed my children egg yolks and goats milk, my youngest eats fat trimmings, marrow,oysters, and blueberries for finger food, and along with a special formula I believe I may have found a way to raise children who can tolerate some of the problem foods, and still thrive...

Children will usually like meats and fats if you introduce them early. I hate when my friends kid is hungry and her uncle will give cupcakes! He says she doesn't like meat.... :/ Last time I was over and the kid announced to me she was hungry, so I made her a fatty salmon steak, she loved it. And while I was serving her it they were saying "but she wont like it don't bother", wtf. SHe probably doesn't like it because he buys the frozen salmon steaks with preservative and puts too much lemon and salt on them, I can't eat his salmon steak either, sour, overcooked and dry. Some people have no clue about foods, so their kids end up trained on junk )=

My first foods when I was a kid, growing up in Russia, were sausages and potatoes! I loved them so and my dad sais when I woke up and was hungry I would yell "sausages!!!!", lol...oh and it wasn't the "hotdogs" you get here, it was the real sausages, ground meat stuffed into an intestine tube...oh yeah as my grain I had cornmeal porridge with butter.

[sabertooth]

I grew up around some real poor and uneducated people who would consider macaroni and cheese as a perfect dinner for the children, with cereal for breakfast and grilled cheese for lunch, its no wonder why so many don't grow up strong and bright. This possessed diet is what my younger brother and sister followed extensively. I was the first born so when my mother was living separate from my father I was just fed  the same food she was eatting, which included a variety of relatively decent homecooked meals. By the time my mother had my younger brother and sister she became so over run with work and responsibility that she caved in to convenience foods for us kids. By that time I already had a taste for meat and so she catered to me and would make me larger portions of meat , she would make Salmon patties and would save me  the bones, or sometimes I would just open a can of tuna and eat it plain. Canned food isn't ideal but I was better off than my younger siblings that seemed to have taken to the convenience foods and got very little of the homecooking that I enjoyed my first 5 years before my mother became to busy to make wholesome meals. My siblings ate very little food that was unprocessed and we all ended up living on cakes and eatting sugar cereal while growing up. Its a testament to mankinds ability to perserver how I was able to build and maintain a sane and functioning mind considering how I lived and what I ate when I was younger.

I knew what was happening during my childhood wasn't anywhere near Ideal but I was poor and didn't have a choice. Now I am still fairly poor but I make more money that my mother made and am determined to spend every penny I have toward providing good living for my family. My goal is to incorporate paleo food into my children's diet and strictly limit questionable foods. Then let nature take its course and prey they are well enough to endure the occasional birthday party food, or piece of candy. Sometimes I wonder how much force I can put behind setting strict dietary standards, without being a fanatic. I am constantly lecturing my family on the dangers of letting children have unlimited amounts of processed foods and candy.

[donrad]

The Price/Pottinger studies suggest that poor nutrition of our mothers affects our health and physical development. This physical degeneration is cumulative as it is passed down through the generations. The human cultures surrounding the Mediterranian have been on the grain/bean starch/sugar diets the longest.

Could this be why African Americans are on the average are so physically superior to European descendants like me?

Could this be why it seems impossible for ancient cultures to have built the stone structures in ruins all around the world without machinery? They were just amazing physical powerhouses on paleo nutrition? Pre-degeneration.

The best book I have read on this subject is "Evolving Health" by Noel Boaz. He takes it back to single cell.

[TylerDurden]

Could this be why African Americans are on the average are so physically superior to European descendants like me?

From what I have read, it is the Middle-East which has been on grains the longest in history. People in Europe only very slowly changed from meat-heavy diets to ones including raw dairy and then grains. As for the comment re African Americans and physical performance, if you are referring to predominance in sport, there are other reasons such as more coming from more economically-challenged backgrounds thus giving more incitement re entering sports etc. Also, the 3 or 4 main ethnic groups seem all to be top in some sports but do less well in others.

[raw-al]

I am hardly one to speak with authority on the subject but I have read in a number of places that when early explorers came to North Am the aboriginals were very large, well-built, handsome, however you want to describe them. Since they first met the coastal aboriginals I suspect they were on pretty much a non-grain and thus a substantially meat diet with a certain amount of plant based foods.