tallow v. butter

[rawcarni]

We now return you to your original program “Tallow vs Butter”, brought to you by a87.pal…
Lex   

Thanks-I have a question  on that one. Is butter regarded as "bad" as cheese? I am asking b/c a frined of mine has epilepsi and he has been thinking about starting a ketogenic diet in order to try to cut back on meds. Howeve, rhe would need to up the calories of the fattiest beef he can get (about 68% fat) but he hasn't found out yet where to get any tallow or suet and has been thinking of using butter for that. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Nicole

[TylerDurden]

Tyler, I never said most of the things you implied that I said and then say you’ve debunked.  I only said:  The first study says only that PAH’s exist and they can be measured.  The Wikipedea entry told us what PAH’s are and where they can be found.  Both of these are what is so.  But they are also, so what?  We know they exist, we know what and where they are, and we can accurately measure them.  We just can’t show they cause any significant problem in the diet – unless you cheat and add other known carcinogens to give them a boost, or raise the level to hundreds or thousands of times what would be found in real food.  This was clearly demonstrated in the PubMed article where they didn’t even mention PAH’s but rather HCA’s and was a study expressly made to link these HCAs to tumor formation.  Even the abstract admits that the only way they could get tumors to form was with a “regimen of promotional stimuli” in both humans and rats.  Sort of like running a study to prove that water will kill you and then preparing it as tea containing a variety of ‘promotional stimuli’, like hemlock, to make sure you get a positive outcome. 

I’ve read countless studies of this type and not one shows a definitive link between any illness and cooking of food.  Most are right up there with the cholesterol hysteria where the official reports are misleading or where they artificially manipulated the environment to create the desired outcome just as they did in the PubMed study you referenced.  The only surprise for me was that the manipulation was made so obvious in the PubMed abstract.  Usually it is buried deep in study data and requires that you pay to receive the full report to find it.

  First of all, the above claim of yours is invalid for a specific reason:- The rats were only fed with a tumour-inducing carcinogen because rats don't get spontaneous colon cancer on any diet(I am sure that long-term human studies would be better but they are simply not practical, only short-term ones are). That way re carcinogen-use, scientists can determine if adding a new type of dietary regime, on top of the carcinogen, then dramatically increased or decreased the chances of getting cancer(or increased/decreased its severity) away from the standard rate/severity of cancer that those rats would have gotten with just being given the carcinogen and no specific diet. So your assertion does not debunk those results per se.


Plus, while you are right in stating(by implication) that animal studies are nowhere near as good as human studies, there are plenty of other studies which you cannot refute convincingly. I  previously pointed out earlier on in the thread that HCAs and PAHs are known toxins in cigarette-smoke and contribute to various illnesses caused by smoking according to endless studies. Kind of difficult to suggest that HCAs and PAHs are harmless in foods but somehow suddenly only magically dangerous if within cigarette-smoke - well, unless, like  william did, you want to foolishly suggest that smoking is always good for you, despite all the scientific evidence against this notion!

Then there are in vitro studies like these:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569298/

which show that benzopyrene, (a toxic PAH, incidentally present in both cigarette-smoke and in foods, by the way), has a direct negative effect on human cells:-

http://caluniv.academia.edu/ParagNandi/Papers/298939/The_In_Vitro_Effect_of_Benzo_a_Pyrene_on_Human_Sperm_Hyperactivation_and_Acrosome_Reaction


What I also find interesting is that heat-created toxins like benzopyrene affect the DNA in harmful ways:-

http://www.caspases.org/showabstract.php?pmid=16926039

It would not surprise me, therefore, if heat-created toxins from cooked foods have a powerful epigenetic effect on offspring. Smoking, which involves damage from heat-created toxins, has been shown to have a negative epigenetic influence on future offspring re dramatic asthma increases for example:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7252-pregnant-smokers-increases-grandkids-asthma-risk.html

What it boils down to is that while one can quibble about a few of the studies, the masses of studies as a whole show clearly that heat-created toxins derived from cooked foods harm the body. Naturally, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest ways to reduce such toxin-intake or their effects(re boiling in water or doing exercise or practising caloric restriction  etc.) - but, given the masses of scientific data debunking the notion that cooked foods are healthy and the wealth of anecdotal info from RVAFers on how much better their health is after cutting out cooked meats from their diet, it is increasingly untenable to suggest that cooked food either has no discernible difference in effect from raw foods(given such numerous chemical changes induced by cooking) or to suggest, like Wrangham does, that eating cooked foods is way more beneficial than eating raw foods.

[TylerDurden]

Thanks-I have a question  on that one. Is butter regarded as "bad" as cheese? I am asking b/c a frined of mine has epilepsi and he has been thinking about starting a ketogenic diet in order to try to cut back on meds. Howeve, rhe would need to up the calories of the fattiest beef he can get (about 68% fat) but he hasn't found out yet where to get any tallow or suet and has been thinking of using butter for that. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Nicole

  In the RVAF world, anyway, butter is seen as being "less worse" than cheese. Butter is supposed to be lower in lactose/casein than the other dairy-types. Ghee is supposed to be even more lactose-/casein-free than butter.

I would also strongly advise your friend to read up on the negative side-effects of ketogenic diets. There are some things to watch out for, such as making sure to drink lots of water etc.

[lex_rooker]

Well Tyler, I don’t know what to say.  Your evidence is overwhelming.

In the first study, BaP was shown to exacerbate existing cancer caused by asbestos.  Asbestos being a well known and documented carcinogen.  Can you say “promotional stimuli”?

In the second study, sperm were washed of all their natural fluids and then flooded with various concentrations of BaP, all of them hundreds of times the levels that would be found in the body, and sperm function was affected.  Wonder what would happen if they flooded them with various concentrations of salt water, vinegar, fruit juice, or a host of other common things we consume.  All of the above will instantly kill sperm but seem to be relatively harmless, and some might say enjoyable, even when consumed in large quantities and high concentrations.

Your third study states that 4 different lines of breast cancer cells were exposed to BaP and the DNA of these cancer cells was effected.  Apparently it has no effect on normal cells as these weren’t mentioned.

The final link is about the effects of smoking.  I’ve never smoked as my body reacted violently when I attempted it, and I trusted that it was telling me this was not a good thing. Therefore I’ve chosen not to smoke my pork ribs, chicken, or grilled steaks.  I prefer to eat them.   My body has had no severe adverse reaction to eating grilled ribs, chicken, or steak, at least that I’ve been able to detect.  But then I’m cheating as I’m in vivo, not in vitro.

The lessons of the above studies are quite clear.  1. If you are either an in vitro cancer cell (specifically breast cancer or mesothelioma), or an in vitro sperm cell you should avoid solutions containing high concentrations of BaP.  2. Smoking tobacco (or anything else for that matter) is probably not the healthiest lifestyle choice, whether you are in vitro or in vivo.

Though entertaining, might I suggest we abandon this foolishness and let the thread get on with arguing the merits of tallow vs butter?

Lex

[TylerDurden]

In the first study, BaP was shown to exacerbate existing cancer caused by asbestos.  Asbestos being a well known and documented carcinogen.  Can you say “promotional stimuli”?

Your point is completely invalid, of course. It is absolutely irrelevant that asbestos is a known carcinogen as the WHOLE POINT of the study was that abestos combined with benzopyrene, a known carcinogen and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon(PAH) present in cigarette-smoke and cooked foods, has a much nastier carcinogenic effect than asbestos on its own( re mention of an increased synergistic effect etc.). Plus, there are plenty of studies showing that benzopyrene on its own is carcinogenic without the need of asbestos or similiar carcinogen:-


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8832894

In the second study, sperm were washed of all their natural fluids and then flooded with various concentrations of BaP, all of them hundreds of times the levels that would be found in the body, and sperm function was affected.  Wonder what would happen if they flooded them with various concentrations of salt water, vinegar, fruit juice, or a host of other common things we consume.  All of the above will instantly kill sperm but seem to be relatively harmless, and some might say enjoyable, even when consumed in large quantities and high concentrations.

I’m afraid you’ve been conned by a rather hoary old-wives’ tale/urban legend which has since proven false re that saltwater remark – it seems  that sperm do eventually die after dispersal but the saltwater notion is apparently not valid. The TV show Mythbusters did a routine experiment and managed to disprove the notion that one could use  acidic drinks like cola as an effective spermicide. They also used as a comparison, a safe sample of sperm in a saline solution. Indeed, saline solutions are commonly used to store sperm quite safely and are offered on sale all over :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2003_season)#101_Uses_For_Cola


While dispersal of sperm will eventually kill off sperm, due to quite other reasons, it isn’t quite as easy, therefore, to kill off sperm. More to the point, such damage done to sperm seems to include damage to the DNA of sperm, which is something only benzopyrene seems to do, unlike fruit-juice or whatever. In other words, microscopic amounts of benzopyrene, a type of PAH, will have a slight negative effect on sperm re DNA-damage or overall infertility but not other more harmless substances - and, over a lifetime of ingesting   daily amounts of such PAHs one can expect more damage to occur.

Your third study states that 4 different lines of breast cancer cells were exposed to BaP and the DNA of these cancer cells was effected.  Apparently it has no effect on normal cells as these weren’t mentioned.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC223267/

This is pure equivocation. The fact that that 1 particular study  didn’t happen to mention the effect on normal cells just cancerous ones, does not remotely mean that normal cells are not affected. Indeed, there are studies showing that normal cells are indeed affected by benzopyrene re DNA damage  or other aspects:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC220015/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC220015/?page=1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC349016/

 

The final link is about the effects of smoking.  I’ve never smoked as my body reacted violently when I attempted it, and I trusted that it was telling me this was not a good thing. Therefore I’ve chosen not to smoke my pork ribs, chicken, or grilled steaks.  I prefer to eat them.   My body has had no severe adverse reaction to eating grilled ribs, chicken, or steak, at least that I’ve been able to detect.  But then I’m cheating as I’m in vivo, not in vitro.

  This is pointless obfuscation on your part. I have already previously pointed out that the heat-created toxins found in cigarette-smoke(specifically HCAs and PAHs) are also found in cooked foods in general, not just smoked foods, so eating non-smoked cooked foods and not smoking could not prevent one from taking in such heat-created toxins. As for your mention of having no adverse reactions to eating grilled ribs, that is purely your personal claim, and rather  pointless in view of the multitude  of other RVAFers’ own anecdotes about the ill-health they got from eating grilled ribs, me being just 1 individual  in the whole mob. Besides,  I have previously had some people in appallingly bad health on SAD diets  assure me that they were in fine health, so I prefer to rely on the fact that most cooked-foodists in the end suffer some form of age-related condition, derived from heat-created toxins in cooked foods, rather than just 1 lone individual’s vague assurances. The evidence linking AGEs to arthritis etc. is just too damning.

The lessons of the above studies are quite clear.  1. If you are either an in vitro cancer cell (specifically breast cancer or mesothelioma), or an in vitro sperm cell you should avoid solutions containing high concentrations of BaP.  2. Smoking tobacco (or anything else for that matter) is probably not the healthiest lifestyle choice, whether you are in vitro or in vivo.

  Not in the slightest. The in vitro studies show that human cells are directly negatively affected by heat-created toxins, making it extremely unlikely that the human body, as a whole, is unaffected. Plus, the data on the negative effects of HCAs/PAHs in cigarette-smoke is also applicable to the danger of eating cooked foods, as HCAs/PAHs are also found in cooked foods as well as cigarette-smoke and car-exhaust fumes – indeed, 1 past link showed that we take in such toxins in much greater amounts than we breathe in via air-pollution.

Though entertaining, might I suggest we abandon this foolishness and let the thread get on with arguing the merits of tallow vs butter?

Lex

  Well, obviously, I was already well aware no amount of scientific evidence, however solid, would manage to convince you, given your religious beliefs on the subject of cooking. But it was a useful means to summarise, for RVAFers in general,  a very tiny proportion of the multitude of scientific studies confirming the harm done by cooked foods(I particularly appreciate the reports in the studies and media about the fact that certain heat-created toxins found in cooked foods are also found in cigarette-smoke and car-exhaust fumes). The vast majority of us(except you it seems) have plenty of anecdotal evidence of their own to support the notion that cooking causes minor to major degrees of harm, and having their own findings confirmed by science is very useful indeed.

Well, back to the so-called "merits" of tallow vs butter - six of one and half a dozen of the other re extent of their usefulness but anyway....

[lex_rooker]

Tyler,
You miss the fact that I’m not attacking you or your premise.  Cooking may, or may not be harmful.  I just don’t know.  My point is to demonstrate that studies must be carefully analyzed.  They are highly biased and the conclusions drawn in the final reports are often stretched well beyond what is supported by the actual data.  

There are ZERO studies linking cooked food to any disease in vivo – “in vivo” meaning a real body in the real world eating real food.   The only way they can manage any link at all is through gross amounts of pure chemicals applied to cells “in vitro” (glass bottles), or by adding artificial catalysts to the environment (promotional stimuli) so as to create the desired outcome.  Your own studies demonstrate this fact.  I question whether it is reasonable to draw useful conclusions about the harmful effects of cooking from such studies, especially when there is no real world evidence linking cooking to any specific disease or condition.  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, only that I can find no real world “in vivo” studies that show any definitive link.  Apparently neither can you.  What you have done is take a leap of faith that what occurs in vitro under artificial laboratory conditions is what will occur in the complex and chaotic in vivo environment.  Since so many previously held cherished beliefs drawn from lab studies have proven totally false, I choose not to draw such conclusions.  My own health and dietary experience has shown that the conventional wisdom from the best research laboratories, obtained from decades of in vitro studies, is not necessarily true.

As far as religion goes, it appears we both suffer from a bit of over zealotry. I have chosen to worship the “in vivo” evidence of the real world around me, and you have chosen to worship the “in vitro” evidence in the artificial world of the laboratory.  I expect the truth lies somewhere in between and the people on this forum are quite able to make up their own minds on the subject.

Lex

[TylerDurden]

Tyler,
You miss the fact that I’m not attacking you or your premise.  Cooking may, or may not be harmful.  I just don’t know.  My point is to demonstrate that studies must be carefully analyzed.  They are highly biased and the conclusions drawn in the final reports are often stretched well beyond what is supported by the actual data.   

There are ZERO studies linking cooked food to any disease in vivo – “in vivo” meaning a real body in the real world eating real food.   The only way they can manage any link at all is through gross amounts of pure chemicals applied to cells “in vitro” (glass bottles), or by adding artificial catalysts to the environment (promotional stimuli) so as to create the desired outcome.  Your own studies demonstrate this fact.  I question whether it is reasonable to draw useful conclusions about the harmful effects of cooking from such studies, especially when there is no real world evidence linking cooking to any specific disease or condition.  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, only that I can find no real world “in vivo” studies that show any definitive link.  Apparently neither can you.  What you have done is take a leap of faith that what occurs in vitro under artificial laboratory conditions is what will occur in the complex and chaotic in vivo environment.  Since so many previously held cherished beliefs drawn from lab studies have proven totally false, I choose not to draw such conclusions.  My own health and dietary experience has shown that the conventional wisdom from the best research laboratories, obtained from decades of in vitro studies, is not necessarily true.

As far as religion goes, it appears we both suffer from a bit of over zealotry. I have chosen to worship the “in vivo” evidence of the real world around me, and you have chosen to worship the “in vitro” evidence in the artificial world of the laboratory.  I expect the truth lies somewhere in between and the people on this forum are quite bright enough to make up their own minds on the subject.

Lex

Again, incorrect. There are various ways to demonstrate the harm of cooked foods via scientific studies. I have already demonstrated the in vitro examples of direct effects on human cells, a number of which you have failed to really debunk convincingly. The number of studies damning the effect of smoking are so extensive now, that no respectable scientist can reasonably debunk them en masse. Since several toxins in cigarette-smoke have  been similiarly found in cooked foods, the pro-cooked camp looks pretty weakened as regards both experiments done on isolated human cells and experiments on human test-subjects.

Then there are the in vivo studies done on animals(yes I was actually perfectly aware of the meaning of "in vivo" but hadn't had the time, then, to correct that quickly  minor grammatical errors or minor accidental switches of words).While animals are not humans, there are sufficient similiarities between humans and animals, for at least some of those studies to be notable.

And, I hasten to add that, contrary to your claims,  there indeed have been a sizeable NUMBER of studies done on human patients "in vivo" as regards the effects of heat-created toxins on humans in terms of damaging their health thus proving that cooked foods are damaging to health, some of which I have long been aware of. Here are a few samples:-

This is a general overview summarising the results of some studies showing that reducing AGEs helped alleviate certain unpleasant symptoms of diabetes:-

http://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/21/4/186.full

Here is an in vivo study confirming the damage done to diabetes patients when AGEs-intake was increased(changing cooking methods  to reduce AGEs/advanced glycation end products in the cooked foods consumed improved certain aspects of diabetes(since AGEs-levels are determined mainly by the severity of the cooking , it's clear that less harsher methods of cooking were used to reduce them):-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18448830

http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=fulltext&file=000217817

Here's an in vivo study confirming the damage done to some human experimental subjects from eating grilled meats:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7955064


Here is an overview, with numerous references to studies done on AGEs/advanced glycation end products and their link to diseases like diabetes, and a number of those studies were done on human patients " in vivo":-

http://www.life-enhancement.com/article_template.asp?id=1869

[ys]

i randomly clicked on one of your links http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7955064

it has some confusing data.
can you please explain this "In a subsequent study in which six volunteers consumed charcoal-broiled hamburgers with lower levels of benzo[a]pyrene and pyrene, no aromatic DNA adducts in mononuclear cells or increased 1-hydroxypyrene levels in urine were detected."

what is the difference between hamburgers in the first study that appear to have this aromatic DNA adducts (whatever that means) and hamburgers that do not have those things?

[TylerDurden]

i randomly clicked on one of your links http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7955064

it has some confusing data.
can you please explain this "In a subsequent study in which six volunteers consumed charcoal-broiled hamburgers with lower levels of benzo[a]pyrene and pyrene, no aromatic DNA adducts in mononuclear cells or increased 1-hydroxypyrene levels in urine were detected."

what is the difference between hamburgers in the first study that appear to have this aromatic DNA adducts (whatever that means) and hamburgers that do not have those things?

The study is making a contrast between the negative effects on health from 2 different kinds of hamburgers:- 1 lot of  hamburgers was cooked/grilled and  had a higher load of benzopyrene, a known carcinogen and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon(a kind of heat-created toxin produced by cooking) and therefore caused DNA adduct formation ; while another lot of (charcoal-broiled)hamburgers, with a lower load of benzopyrene in them, caused no DNA adduct formation in the patients.

Here's standard info on DNA adducts:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_adduct

[ys]

so is one cooking method less harmful than the other, broiled vs grilled?  since researchers could not find harmful effects of broiled hamburgers.

[TylerDurden]

so is one cooking method less harmful than the other, broiled vs grilled?  since researchers could not find harmful effects of broiled hamburgers.

I was under the impression that broiling was more or less the same as grilling, up till now. But , whatever the case, there must have been some difference in cooking-temperature, for the benzopyrene levels to have been lower with charcoal-broiling than with grilling.

Note that they were only looking for a specific type of harm to DNA re mutagenic activity, so other kinds of harm were not  noted, being irrelevant to the study - all they could state was that, past a certain level of intake of benzopyrene into the body via cooked-food-consumption, people started having a negative effect therefrom . Charcoal-broiled meats have, of course, other kinds of heat-created toxins.

[lex_rooker]

Everyone can read the studies for themselves and make up their own minds as to how relevent the information is to their daily lives.  My guess is that most of us would gain far more benefit from focusing on eating the right foods rather than agonizing over how they are prepared, but read the studies and decide for yourselves.

I also haven't tried to debunk anything. As I've said, I haven't a clue as to what specific diseases are caused by cooking, and not sure anyone else does either.  I've only suggested that people question everything and not blindly accept studies without doing some critical analysis.

We each get to choose what we wish to believe, but we must also face the consequences, good and bad, of acting on those beliefs.  To that end, I have chosen to believe that what I eat is far more important to my health and well being than how it is prepared.  So far, I'm very pleased with the consequences... or maybe it's just the high benzopyrene levels (or those darn DNA adducts) in my system that make me think so.....

Lex

[TylerDurden]

The trouble is that you are practising a double-standard. On the one hand, you try to claim that how a food is processed matters little, yet you also admit to eating much(most?) of your food raw - so, clearly, it really does matter a lot to you, otherwise, if the benefit were really so meagre,  you would not bother to eat raw and would instead eat almost all of your meats cooked and well-cooked at that(except, perhaps  for occasional sushi/steak tartare at restaurants) as, for social reasons,  it is a hell of a lot easier to eat cooked foods when you're eating with friends/family etc.

As for the mention  of DNA adducts, bear in mind that these were only 2 short 5-day studies involving something ridiculously small like 2 cooked hamburgers a day, yet it still had a minor effect re cancerous DNA adducts. Once one realises that people generally eat far more of such cooked foods most days of their lives, one can see how a gradual buildup of such toxins in the body  would be more likely to cause cancer or some other degenerative disease, over the course of their lifetimes.

Judging from past reports online, a large majority of RVAFers seem actually to do badly on cooked foods, even if they are of the highest quality, such as cooked, 100 percent grassfed/organic meats etc. And it is telling that people who go raw vegan/fruitarian routinely report experiencing health-benefits when they first start, implying that the raw aspect is also important.

[lex_rooker]

The trouble is that you are practising a double-standard. On the one hand, you try to claim that how a food is processed matters little, yet you also admit to eating much(most?) of your food raw - so, clearly, it really does matter a lot to you, otherwise, if the benefit were really so meagre,  you would not bother to eat raw and would instead eat almost all of your meats cooked and well-cooked at that(except, perhaps  for occasional sushi/steak tartare at restaurants) as, for social reasons,  it is a hell of a lot easier to eat cooked foods when you're eating with friends/family etc.

Not sure I'd call it a double standard.  I've been very clear on what I do and why I do it.  I eat raw more for ideological reasons than being convinced that there are severe health consequences to cooking. The same goes for ZC.  I have no evidence that eating raw has given me any more health benefit than if I had continued eating my food cooked med rare, just as I have no evidence that eating ZC has produced any health benefit beyond what I would have gotten had I continued with eating a small salad and a piece of fruit each day.  Since I chose the mostly raw ZC path and have stuck with it for several years now, we'll never know. 

What I can say is that I believe I got at least 90% of my health benefit from eating a lightly cooked paleo diet with a small salad and a piece of fruit each day, and the only reason I won't commit to saying 100% is because I just don't know due to changing to ZC for such a long period of time.  I'm also happy to state that ZC has worked well and I have no reason to change, but would have no problem going back to my original paleo protocol.  As it is, I eat cooked BBQ'd ribs (sans sauce) and grilled steaks several times per month and enjoy them immensely.  Those PAH's, HCA, BaPs, and AGE's are absolutely delicious!

Lex

[a87.pal]

I think everyone in this forum has the gut impression that cooking foods will lead to extra carcinogens.

What I'm not convinced of, though, Tyler, is that (A) these carcinogens get past the GI/digestive system when grains/legumes/seeds are removed from the diet, because that is where most cooked paleo dieters get problems. Further, I am also not convinced that (B) humans cannot handle a light load of these carcinogens in the gut (which is lined with/protected by bacteria might I remind you).

presumably given another 50 years once all the current cooked paleo dieters grow old (A) can be studied and proven one way or another. However, it will be along time before we can even design experiments to study (B).

knowing that it will be a long time before this is resolved, I have a very specific question: Given what we know about their chemical makeup how would you compare raw grass fed butter against melted (140-180 F/60-80 C for 30 min) grass fed suet [as I consume this more often than tallow, which I only use for pemmican].

I imagine your response is going to vary on a person's dairy tolerance, so bear the following in mind for my case: after eating butter a few more times this last week I got really sick of the taste and didn't want to eat anymore, like a really strong "stop signal." In earlier experiments I ate butter and sour cream for 2 months without any of these reactions. However, when I had tried to drink raw milk (~1 quart a day) in the past, I never really acclimated to it, even after 1.5 months, still getting gas and electrolyte imbalance symptoms.

[turkish]

I imagine your response is going to vary on a person's dairy tolerance, so bear the following in mind for my case: after eating butter a few more times this last week I got really sick of the taste and didn't want to eat anymore, like a really strong "stop signal." In earlier experiments I ate butter and sour cream for 2 months without any of these reactions. However, when I had tried to drink raw milk (~1 quart a day) in the past, I never really acclimated to it, even after 1.5 months, still getting gas and electrolyte imbalance symptoms.

Raw grassfed butter does the same to me, not having similiar issues with lard, or raw animal fat. I get clear stop signal with animal fat, and satiety too.

[TylerDurden]

What I can say is that I believe I got at least 90% of my health benefit from eating a lightly cooked paleo diet with a small salad and a piece of fruit each day, and the only reason I won't commit to saying 100% is because I just don't know due to changing to ZC for such a long period of time. 

Interesting, I had thought you had way back when stated having a major food-intolerance towards any carbs, but you claim that lightly-cooked, (VLC) palaeo was not that bad for you personally. My mistake.

As for the point about the double-standard, that's rather clear -one should preach what one practises, and vice-versa.
. I also find it absurd that you go in for pemmican quite frequently  and cooked/grilled meats  a few times a month, and yet eat lots of raw meats. It's  not just a contradiction, it makes no sense at all! Either one really believes that cooking is harmless and happily cooks all their meats/foods well-done until they're blackened, or one believes that cooked foods cause eventual harm and goes to the trouble of eating most of their meats raw, and only eating cooked meats/foods in extremis on social occasions etc., if at all.

Other pro-cooked-food-advocates in the pro-SFA crowd use similiar arguments. They usually state that since lightly-cooked foods are "less worse" than well-cooked foods, that therefore cooking in general is fine. However, this is a false premise. A genuine attempt to defend cooking would have to involve defending ALL forms of cooking, even grilling etc. As soon as these  accept that cooking until the food is blackened is harmful, then one has already lost half of the argument re cooked vs raw, yet they(unlike you in this thread) don't seem to realise this rather obvious point.

I'm also happy to state that ZC has worked well and I have no reason to change, but would have no problem going back to my original paleo protocol.  As it is, I eat cooked BBQ'd ribs (sans sauce) and grilled steaks several times per month and enjoy them immensely.  Those PAH's, HCA, BaPs, and AGE's are absolutely delicious!

Lex

Yes, I know, those heat-created toxins have in them some  notoriously addictive opioids which affect the brain(re affecting dopamine levels etc.), causing unnatural cravings within me for those "delicious" grilled meats if I eat them, and resulting in nasty side-effects the next day.

[TylerDurden]

I think everyone in this forum has the gut impression that cooking foods will lead to extra carcinogens.

What I'm not convinced of, though, Tyler, is that (A) these carcinogens get past the GI/digestive system when grains/legumes/seeds are removed from the diet, because that is where most cooked paleo dieters get problems.

  First of all cooked-palaeodieters actually have a variety of other problems which are just as bad or worse as grains/legumes/seeds. On the varied cooked-palaeodiet forums I've been on, legumes/seeds are foods that people actually have fewer  problems with, specifically. The non-palaeo foods cooked-palaeodieters have the most  problems with appear to be grains, dairy, (and, to a lesser extent, carbs in general, as opposed to just seeds/legumes in particular).

As for heat-created toxins like PAHs, scientists are now largely convinced that carcinogens do indeed get past the digestive tract, given that PAHs have been directly linked to stomach- and colon-cancer etc.:-

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a789923150&fulltext=713240928

[/quote]

.

Further, I am also not convinced that
 (B) humans cannot handle a light load of these carcinogens in the gut (which is lined with/protected by bacteria might I remind you).

  For that to be the case, one would by now have come across studies showing that humans had some sort of enhanced ability to get rid of such heat-created toxins, especially by comparison to wild animals, but there are no such studies  to date, yet 1,000s of studies confirming the damage done by heat-created toxins.  The fact that studies have also shown that peoples' health problems get better when AGEs-levels in their bodies  are reduced etc. is also indicative.

presumably given another 50 years once all the current cooked paleo dieters grow old (A) can be studied and proven one way or another. However, it will be along time before we can even design experiments to study (B).

Minor observation:- The cooked-palaeodiet is  quite a fringe diet-movement. It has a poor presence on the web by comparison to cooked, low carb and even raw vegan diets, despite it having a strong prehistoric background. The reason, I suspect, is that it isn't generally drastic enough in its dietary regime. People on other diets find near-instant recovery from just cutting out all carbs or all cooked foods, and frequently report beneficial effects therefrom.

knowing that it will be a long time before this is resolved, I have a very specific question: Given what we know about their chemical makeup how would you compare raw grass fed butter against melted (140-180 F/60-80 C for 30 min) grass fed suet [as I consume this more often than tallow, which I only use for pemmican].

I imagine your response is going to vary on a person's dairy tolerance, so bear the following in mind for my case: after eating butter a few more times this last week I got really sick of the taste and didn't want to eat anymore, like a really strong "stop signal." In earlier experiments I ate butter and sour cream for 2 months without any of these reactions. However, when I had tried to drink raw milk (~1 quart a day) in the past, I never really acclimated to it, even after 1.5 months, still getting gas and electrolyte imbalance symptoms.

Well, it all depends on you. If, like Lex, you really experience no overt issues at all with heated suet, then it would be an option for now, though I still think you would be best placed to reduce the amounts thereof. If you have issues towards both heated suet and raw dairy, then your best best is to try other sources of raw fats rather than trying the "least worst" - just keep on searching for them until you find the right sources. If you can't afford those other raw fats , then cut down on fat-intake in general via Intermittent Fasting or (mild) caloric restriction. if the reason for your need for fat is being zero-carb, then you could try going raw omnivore as that means one can reduce fat-intake more easily without issues - unless, of course, you have issues with raw carbs.

[a87.pal]

  First of all cooked-palaeodieters actually have a variety of other problems which are just as bad or worse as grains/legumes/seeds. On the varied cooked-palaeodiet forums I've been on, legumes/seeds are foods that people actually have fewer  problems with, specifically. The non-palaeo foods cooked-palaeodieters have the most  problems with appear to be grains, dairy, (and, to a lesser extent, carbs in general, as opposed to just seeds/legumes in particular).

As for heat-created toxins like PAHs, scientists are now largely convinced that carcinogens do indeed get past the digestive tract, given that PAHs have been directly linked to stomach- and colon-cancer etc.:-

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a789923150&fulltext=713240928

I'm a bit confused. Do you not consider the stomach and colon part of GI and digestive system? These are places that are in direct contact with the carcinogens before they enters the blood stream, so isn't there still a barrier before they get to the internal organs (heart, liver, kidney, brain, etc.)?

The reason why I mentioned grain/legumes/seeds is not because people necessarily have problems with them intrinsically, but rather because they promote gut permeability which would make it easier for carcinogens to enter the blood stream from the GI and digestive system.

In any case, I realized that the last time I experimented with beef back fat was in the very beginning of my raw paleo journey (when I couldn't digest it all) and that it may be worth revising. However, for some reason, I think that since suet is closer to the organs it should be more nutritional, though I doubt that is the case.

[TylerDurden]

I'm a bit confused. Do you not consider the stomach and colon part of GI and digestive system? These are places that are in direct contact with the carcinogens before they enters the blood stream, so isn't there still a barrier before they get to the internal organs (heart, liver, kidney, brain, etc.)?

Sorry, I thought you meant that the heat-created toxins were dealt with in the stomach, or some such. But there are also studies showing that heat-created toxins even reach organs like the heart or the kidney:-

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7396/is_315/ai_n42061264/

http://www.cmj.org/Periodical/paperlist.asp?id=LW2007429414606901754&linkintype=pubmed

The reason why I mentioned grain/legumes/seeds is not because people necessarily have problems with them intrinsically, but rather because they promote gut permeability which would make it easier for carcinogens to enter the blood stream from the GI and digestive system.

Well, even when I was on cooked-palaeodiet or on other diets where I happened to avoid grains/legumes/seeds, I still had issues with heat-created toxins.

In any case, I realized that the last time I experimented with beef back fat was in the very beginning of my raw paleo journey (when I couldn't digest it all) and that it may be worth revising. However, for some reason, I think that since suet is closer to the organs it should be more nutritional, though I doubt that is the case.

Well,  I get the impression that suet is the least nutritional fat, to be honest. It's so tough, difficult to digest for some RVAFers etc.

[dsohei]

super cooked vs. completely raw, the answer is somewhere in the middle of the extremes. tyler probably has some unique biochemistry that reacts negatively with cooked meats, but that doesnt mean everyone will.

[TylerDurden]

super cooked vs. completely raw, the answer is somewhere in the middle of the extremes. tyler probably has some unique biochemistry that reacts negatively with cooked meats, but that doesnt mean everyone will.

No, I am hardly unique. The various studies on heat-created toxins confirm, anyway, that most people are ultimately at least moderately affected by cooked meats/foods as they get older. With most, it's a gradual process over many decades, in my case, the deterioration was a bit faster, that's all.

Another obvious point:- it's not merely a question of taking a gradual decline between 100 percent raw and 100 percent-cooked/well-done blackened meat and dividing in two to get a compromise. After all, the switch between raw and cooked is very steep:- first, there is the total loss of bacteria caused by cooking( the mainstream Hygiene Hypothesis points to health-problems arising from that lack re lack of gut bacteria etc. etc.); then there's the complete destruction of the raw food's enzymes thus making digestion more of a burden; and, after all that steep decline, then there's the increasing creation of toxins from cooking and the  ever-decreasing nutrient-levels(re vitamins/minerals) as the cooking-process becomes more intense.

[KD]

The problem as always is even with the proper proof 'in vitro' as Lex points out, you'll always have people for whatever reasons defying such paradigms because health is multifaceted and lots of things can bump or detract from health.

It makes sense to limit as much exposure to known problematic foods as possible, but there are plenty of evidence from a variety of camps on what these foods are even when they are processed or non processed.

Certainly many people from Bee Wilder and Mark Siisson would argue very much about the importance of what is eaten and what is not eaten over how it is prepared as long as it is more or less pre-modern/paleo. Some may even go as far to say that certain foods (like fat->tallow I imagine) NEED to be prepared a certain way or whatever. Personally I think the latter part is crap, but I don't see how people - particularly after poor experiences with raw vegetarian diets - can claim that any food that is cooked or raw-neolithic is going to automatically be useless in comparison to anything raw, particularly with so many examples proving otherwise.

The Sissons and WAP folks of course simplify things too much in referring to traditional diets that were free of disease, and in not recognizing that eating foods raw might accelerate or in some cases be necessary for greater healing or prevent even some traditional aging/illness as I believe Tyler is pointing out, but in the end, peoples results speak more than what studies say or what is on paper sounds healthful or even natural.

[TylerDurden]

The problem as always is even with the proper proof 'in vitro' as Lex points out, you'll always have people for whatever reasons defying such paradigms because health is multifaceted and lots of things can bump or detract from health.

Of course, there are other factors such as fasting reducing AGEs-levels, daily exercise-levels reducing AGEs, not to mention modern hospital care allowing people to live much longer and easier than in previous times etc. But that doesn't mean that a cooked diet is healthy, merely that the cooked diet is unhealthy, and that other factors may reduce the effects of cooked foods to some extent, depending on how much the food is cooked etc. etc.

but I don't see how people - particularly after poor experiences with raw vegetarian diets - can claim that any food that is cooked or raw-neolithic is going to automatically be useless in comparison to anything raw, particularly with so many examples proving otherwise.

First of all, it's not as simple as that. Even raw plant foods are healthy, generally speaking; that is, they are not cooked, so have bacteria, enzymes, no heat-created toxins and high levels of nutrients. That is why, undeniably, according to studies and testimonials, most people(like me) who go raw vegan invariably experience an initial boost in health. The only real catch with raw vegan diets is the fact that raw plant foods do not provide absolutely all nutrients that the body needs so that, long-term, they invariably end up suffering from nutrient-loss. So, someone like SkinnyDevil can do fine, healthwise, on a diet consisting mostly of raw plant foods, and only a little raw animal foods so as to include all relevant nutrients the body needs.

As for the issue of cooked foods, since there is no scientific evidence, as yet, to suggest that humans have a magical ability to combat heat-created toxins that other animals don't, it is reasonable to state that eating cooked foods will lead to some increased deterioration - the rate also  depending on the individual's lifestyle re smoking/exercise etc. etc.. With regard to non-palaeo foods, there is the 75 percent worldwide lactose-intolerance figure for pasteurised dairy plus a host of grain-related illnesses like IBS/Coeliac disease etc., so that some deterioration must occur due to an imperfect adaptation to such foods, however raw.

My own view is that the raw and palaeo aspects are both equally important, though for quite different reasons. But one only has to look at the animal food world to see that dogs can thrive better on a raw diet that isn't ideally suited to them, evolutionarily speaking. The BARF diet for dogs  is a raw diet, consisting mostly of raw meaty bones(60-80 percent), but also including (20-40 percent)raw veg/fruit, and even some raw dairy, along with raw eggs and raw offal. Yet dogs  thrive better on such diets than on any cooked/processed equivalent. Similiarly, while I loathe the pro-raw-dairy movement, I have admittedly come across far more surprising examples of dramatic health-recovery with raw dairy consumption( re regaining fertility etc.) than I have with cooked-palaeo.

The Sissons and WAP folks of course simplify things too much in referring to traditional diets that were free of disease, and in not recognizing that eating foods are raw might accelerate or in some cases be necessary for greater healing or prevent even some traditional aging/illness as I believe Tyler is pointing out, but in the end, peoples results speak more than what studies say or what is on paper sounds healthful or even natural.

  Well, like I said, there is already plentiful anecdotal evidence from the raw-foodist world on the benefits of raw foods over cooked foods. Of course, there is also a lot of biased subjectivity among humans too(I have come across seriously ill cooked-food-eaters who insisted they were  healthy, purely because they were "less unhealthy" than their parents were at the same age).


[/quote]

[KD]

Of course, there are other factors such as fasting reducing AGEs-levels, daily exercise-levels reducing AGEs, not to mention modern hospital care allowing people to live much longer and easier than in previous times etc. But that doesn't mean that a cooked diet is healthy, merely that the cooked diet is unhealthy, and that other factors may reduce the effects of cooked foods to some extent, depending on how much the food is cooked etc. etc. First of all, it's not as simple as that. Even raw plant foods are healthy, generally speaking; that is, they are not cooked, so have bacteria, enzymes, no heat-created toxins and high levels of nutrients. That is why, undeniably, according to studies and testimonials, most people(like me) who go raw vegan invariably experience an initial boost in health. The only real catch with raw vegan diets is the fact that raw plant foods do not provide absolutely all nutrients that the body needs so that, long-term, they invariably end up suffering from nutrient-loss. So, someone like SkinnyDevil can do fine, healthwise, on a diet consisting mostly of raw plant foods, and only a little raw animal foods so as to include all relevant nutrients the body needs.

Much of what you say here is reasonable, but you are still looking at it very much on how things are on paper as individual foods, and not as a 'diet' or healing system. There are within the raw vegan community itself people who have lived decades on raw vegan foods themselves who will suggest SERIOUS problems with various raw vegan foods whether they be fruits or plant fats or whatever, some of them, like Fred Bisci, Gabriel Cousens, and Brian Clement with 30-40 years research each 'proving' such.

You've used SD in a few examples recently, but pretty sure he does not eat a high fruit diet, and like I have already said many things factor into health, so one can't unilaterally say diets meeting certain nutrients will be by default healthy because interactions of food in the body are complex. It may be that his particular diet is very healthful, but someone simply trying to add the same amount of meat (and lack of other animal food) to their particular mostly fruit/veg diet will not be as successful. Plenty of long term raw vegans can be tested more or less positive for fulfilling basic nutrition, such as SWD eaters might potentially do. The issue is certain people will need raw proteins/fats etc.,..to correct a variety of issues that perhaps traditional people did not need and these go beyond basic bodily needs. Others who do not have these requirements - like those who can survive all kinds of awful diets - are the ones who are the real outliers I believe.

The problem is that people can do much better on meat-deprived cooked veg and vegan diets than numerous raw permutations, so while that doesn't prove cooked food is 'good' it means that issues can arise even with the expected more nutrient dense foods/lack-of-toxins in the same amount of animal food deprivation. Just because some might have success just adding the minimal needed animal proteins does not mean that this applies to everyone, which is the very reason why tallow or raw butter might have value..the way I see it.. over foods distinctly paleo or raw because these foods might present their own problems or are not available in modern times in the same quantity or quality nutritionally as might be needed and supplied by them (T + B). This can apply to similar things that seem less optimal or destructive like salt.

The issue really is even though one can find results on paper as to why tallow or butter would be inferior to many individual raw foods, its doesn't proove that a diet that is largely raw and healthful that includes these foods can't be superior than a variety of all raw approaches.

disregarding the whole issue of anti-nutrients, you can't just say an apple is healthy, and a cow is healthy therefore its healthy to eat cows and apples in any quantity and since it is free of toxins and can be rounded out nutritionally with a few other things, that this will guarantee health or even better health than on something clearly less optimal. This is true whether we are comparing to a toxic SWD diet or a cooked paleo diet because that is what is simplifying ultimately. To me its not too mysterious that one individual can have better results on a cooked LC paleo/primal than on 'anything raw' diet if that diet isn't really all that considered, without conceding any real triumphs to cooking or processing tallow or to neolithic foods.