Sorry folks. I’ve been a busy little boy trying to get my next eBook together before the end of the month.
Here’s a short little post – a reply of mine to www.diseaseproof.com. Although I know better, I’ve tried hard to open up intelligent conversations and remind the site moderator, “Gerry,” that there are gaping holes in some his logic and conclusions. Gerry is an arm of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a guy that I mostly agree with as he recommends a nutritious, whole-foods diet, completely devoid of processed foods, as the means of achieving good health, preventing and reversing a wide spectrum of diseases. Our only major points of contention is whether or not animal products and saturated fat can be part of a nutritious whole foods diet. He says no, I say whaddya stoopid?
I’ve been warned many times by Gerry that my comments are not supportive of the “Disease Proof community.” The comment below, he refused to allow. I do support the disease proof community though. I support them waking up from their coma and being receptive to other health movements that are being thwarted by vegetarian and governmental anti-animal propaganda. There are many people harming themselves on vegetarian fare that stand much to gain from knowing that a diet rich in animal products and saturated fat can be healing and therapeutic. Instead, they rule it out before even trying it thanks to Fuhrman and those who shoot it down without any personal experience or knowledge of 20th century disease etiology – and it’s total lack of correlation with saturated fat consumption.
In other words, many are missing out. Just because a person feels good on vegetarian fare doesn’t mean that a diet with meats is miraculously the cause of heart disease. Thus the need for intelligent two-way conversation, which is of great benefit to the disease proof community and the global community. But my most recent comment has been shot down. Well, I can publish it here, a response to a post on Great Britain’s supposed need to reduce saturated fat consumption…
My comments:
Saturated fat, nor dietary cholesterol raise serum cholesterol in a healthy individual. My girlfriend, for example, eats over 1,000 eggs per year, bacon most days (although that’s predominantly monounsaturated), uses butter in her cooking and in sauces, consumes a lot of full-fat cheese, eats popcorn with coconut oil, and eats large quantities of thick cream right off of a spoon. Her doctor was very concerned about her cholesterol, not knowing what her diet was like, because it was so low… 98mg/dl!!!
His advice was to eat bacon, eggs, and butter, to which she replied, “that’s all I eat.” This really goes to show how confused the medical establishment is about saturated fat’s connection to heart health and cholesterol levels, Dr. Fuhrman included.
In truth, if the metabolism is running at it’s appropriate level, the blood does not accumulate fats or cholesterol. In fact, elevated cholesterol levels were originally used to diagnose hypothyroidism (aka a slow metabolism). In studies quoted by Dr. Broda Barnes, the administration of thyroid hormone (only desiccated thyroid, not synthetic garbage) dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, moreso than any statin medication, with nothing but positive side “benefits.”
This is also interesting in light of what was seen amongst the famous rabbit study, where they were forced to eat copious amounts of cholesterol – leading to atherosclerosis. It was later found that this induced hypothyroidism (true of rabbits, but not humans), and with the administration of thyroid hormone to correct that imbalance, cholesterol levels plummeted and rabbits could not develop atherosclerosis.
Slow metabolism = the accumulation of fats in the blood on a high fat diet. There is nothing wrong with a diet high in saturated fat. There is something wrong with the people who are eating that way.
Interestingly enough, the most successful doctor in history at preventing heart disease was Broda O. Barnes, a huge proponent of saturated fat consumption who ate bacon and eggs with full-fat milk for breakfast every day. Only 4 of his nearly 2,000 patients developed heart disease while under his care, many of them not even counseled on diet. Barnes also laughed at the idea that exercise could prevent such a condition, and considered jogging to be a good way to “do some heart damage.”
Barnes wrote 3 excellent books and published many papers. Check them out. His work provides a far-better solution to heart disease than the recommendations to cut saturated fat and do lots of cardio, which Americans and Brits alike have been doing for the last several decades to no avail.
Yes, this comment was omitted, even after I contacted Gerry personally with this heartfelt message…
Gerry,
I appreciate your response to my comments. Although you think that we may be in complete disagreement, please remember that, for the most part, people like you and Dr. Fuhrman have a lot in common with me.
Remember that you and I are in the extreme minority in saying that dietary and lifestyle alteration is the single greatest form of preventative and therapeutic medicine that human beings have available to them. To be on that side of the fence together, and mortal enemies, greatly diminishes our power to influence people across the globe that are in desperate need of hearing the “real food heals” message.
Dr. Fuhrman’s dietary recommendations have tremendous therapeutic potential, are saving lives, and reversing disease. But so are mine and the advice of those like me. There is a wide spectrum of dietary strategies to prevent and reverse disease, and to include some but be stubborn to others is blind.
I didn’t come to DiseaseProof to try to shoot you or Dr. Fuhrman down. I hold Dr. Fuhrman in the very highest light. Rather, I seek to be a unifier of diet gurus so that the “food heals” concept can stop treading water and move beyond the fringes.
The bottom line is that I am moving forward at a very rapid rate, my name will be a household name during my lifetime, and I want you to join me on that journey – not curse my name or spread the notion that what I preach is deadly or a prey-upon-the-public’s ignorance assault for profit.
With the greatest height of sincerity, I wish that you will remember my name, allow me to participate in discussions at Disease Proof, and consider me just as much of an ally as I am a threat to everything that you and Fuhrman stand for – because our ideals are equal, and what I have to share is neither silly nor incorrect.
Best wishes,
Matt Stone
www.180degreehealth.com
“consider me just as much of an ally as I am a threat to everything that you and Fuhrman stand for – because our ideals are equal, and what I have to share is neither silly nor incorrect.”
M,
sounds noble, but the barbarians will not be admitted across the parapets.
A core belief of many of these folks is that eating animal products is “not-spiritual”, “less-evolved”, etc etc.
Perspective is the prism through which “sense” of the world is made. Cholesterol, fat, meats are a convenient reactionary bad-arse, when used to propogate a vegetarian way of eating.
Of course not all vegetarian eaters have a deep core belief that eating animal products is spiritually impure, but it is nevertheless a “reality” for many.
kind wishes, J
That’s why, as Einstein so accurately observed, that “religious idealities are the cause of much human suffering.”
Most religious and ‘spiritual’ ideas are based on an ideal of what we should be, instead of acknowledging, tuning into, and being what we are – and celebrating that – not trying to condemn or overcome that or think ourselves to be beyond our nature (which is a manifestation of spirit/God in the first place).
If you think I have a problem with vegetarians, you should hear me go off on spirituality. It’s usually a practice of trying to be someone else, something else, or trying to go somewhere else (heaven, nirvana, or even a simple peaceful meditation). George W. Bush is more in tune with human nature than Ghandi was.
And then the word ‘hope’ comes up. Which is a word that means, “this sucks, and I refuse to believe that it’s going to continue to be this way.” Hope is just as negative as it is positive, but then again, so is every molecule in the universe.
In summary, on our God-given dietary needs and the way in which our planet was designed by whatever one chooses to call the creating force…
“This is necessary, life feeds on life, feeds on life, feeds on life, feeds on…”
-Tool
“Most religious and ‘spiritual’ ideas are based on an ideal of what we should be, instead of acknowledging, tuning into, and being what we are – and celebrating that – not trying to condemn or overcome that or think ourselves to be beyond our nature (which is a manifestation of spirit/God in the first place).”
You’re completely right about that. It reminds me of a David Bowie quote that I read once and I wrote it down because I liked it so much: “I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.”
It’s nice to hear you talk about spirituality in such a realistic way….wow…i feel sort of stunned.
“George W. Bush is more in tune with human nature than Ghandi was.”
M
Yes, it is fear that drives humanity, not sundry notions of love.
So-called love, hope, faith just become trumpcards.
Furthermore, the notion that some vegans postulate – that somehow they are free from killing sentient life – is laughable and absurd.
Kind wishes, J
Bowie’s one of my favorites, and that is exactly what I’m talking about.
vegetarians just feed agri business pockets. If we just leat animals be animals and graze, fertilize, and produce an abundance of fat soluble vitamins for us, there would be no use for pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and tons of big farm equipment driving around and chopping up grains and tranporting them every which way.
Vegetarians produce probably just as much carbon as the poor grain fed animals in feed lots. They eat too much undigestable fiber and what goes in goes out…more crap!! Let the animals eat the vegetation. Vegans are pretty much eating all the poor animals food…show how spiritual and compassionate they are!
hahaha…funny thing…those vegans..
t r o y
Fuhrman is ridiculous. He says Americans eat a "high saturated fat diet", because they eat 30 pounds of cheese a year (1.3 ounces a day). That's hardly anything. I guess someone eating one ounce of meat a day is eating a high meat diet. LOL. And he admits that refined sugars, oils, and flours are unhealthy. But then he blames things on meat and saturated fat without isolating those variables! This is utter nonsense. Most people aren't eating high saturated fat. They eat low-fat milk and lean meat, cut the fat off meat, or cook and drain it. Meanwhile, the consumption of PUFA oils has skyrocketed and Fuhrman still blames saturated fats. Fast food & junk food are not hign in saturated fat, they're high in PUFAs and trans fat. The worst foods people eat – refined sugars, grains, and oils) are derived from plant foods, not animal foods. Take away those foods and you can't eat SAD. Without the refined sugar, grains, and PUFA oils, it would no longer be SAD.
How can you hold Fuhrman in high regard, when he thinks the only healthy diet has 77g of fiber a day, and no more than 10% calories from animal foods? He lumps all animal foods and fats in with foods like sugar, flour, and corn oil. Where is his credibility? He's a guru with an agenda, and clearly has little interest in truth or science. Can you be healthy on a diet like Fuhrman espouses? Perhaps if you're eating the Kitavan diet. They are one of the best examples of Furhaman's diet you can find. They eat roughly 90% vegan and 10% animal foods. But you can be just as healthy on 100% animal foods.
May be 10% is to small amount for many people, but his general idea is very good : limit animal products to possible minimum.
I think he is the best.
” I am very clear that animal products should be reduced to a lower percentage of total dietary intake, and I set the goal around 10% of calories and I modify that up or down based on individual needs and disease risks.”
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-weston-price-take-your-pseudoscience-elsewhere.html
Overconsumption of animal products can cause significant damage to health.
Some advice of WAPF is very dangerous, for instance they advise to use animal bones for soup and eat liver and kidney of animals.
Re Matt’s first comment: try reading “Yes” magazine sometime. It’s the gloomiest damn magazine outside of “Harper’s.”
—–
I’m still not persuaded that the high meat diet is optimal. But the zero meat diet is definitely suboptimal. B12 deficiency is not a trivial problem.
The challenge I have for all the carbo mush advocates is this: if starchy carbs are so natural, why not eat them raw? If humans aren’t primarily carnivores, what should they eat when fruit are out of season?
Grass seeds are full of lectins and enzyme inhibitors (when “ripe”), and many have allergic reactions. On the other hand, our hands are located at the correct level to harvest grass seeds, and our manual dexterity suitable to the task. Our teeth work very well for grinding such seeds. Green wheat is very tasty…
So, I think the jury is still out, and my hat is off to those doing personal experimentation.
The fiber in fruits and vegetables isn’t as problematic as the fiber in grains or beans (esp whole grains). Nuts and seeds are another matter, because they’re high in fiber and usually PUFAs. Eating a lot of nuts (even raw shelled by hand) gives me a dull sedated feeling. I avoid them, for the most part, because of their drug like toxic effects. I don’t have trouble with sugars. I feel calm and balanced on natural sugars like unstrained honey and juices. Eating a lot of starch causes me shortness of breath and a dull (sedated) feeling like eating nuts.
Maybe you would have stayed healthy on a mostly fruit and vegetable diet if you’d cooked some of the food or juicing it. I agree with Matt that we can thrive on a wide range of macronutrient intakes. I’m able to eat more carbs and less fat with great results, when in the past I would have some negative symptoms. The biggest issue is how fast your metabolism works, not your macronutrient ratios. When most people have slow metabolisms, they might do better on high-fat and low-carb with starches instead of sugars. But if your metabolism is working right, you can eat the exact opposite and thrive: high carb (80-90%), low fat (1-5%), high sugar, no starch, and low-PUFAs (1-2%).
CSM,
Actually, we have jaws that evolved from insectivores – we only started agriculture like a couple thousand years ago, so why the hell would we have jaws for grains and hands to harvest them?; and if we had jaws like a carnivore, we would not be capable of creating speech as well as we do today. We have the brains to either scavange or make tools, and to communicate (packs). Did you know they think part of the reason the Neanderthal went extinct is because his voice box was too low – and there for unable to have as varied voice as the homo sapien? We are a pretty damn good species until we go and ruin it with modern processing. I find it confusing that even with all this technology evolving around us we fail to even realize what real health is. The first thing doctors think about when they see a patient is, “What drug can I give you…”
Did you also know that monkey’s use meat to pursuade females to mate? They go crazy for meat (monkey meat – and saturated fat). They also eat feces to make up for what otherwise would be a B12 deficiency. People can have B12 stores that can last 6 years or that can only last a month, depending on who they are and how much is in their diet. Gorillas also become infertile in zoos if they do not eat insects. I think protein is more important then vegans want to admit – especially raw vegans who try to say we should eat like chimps because we evolved from them. Ok have fun eating bugs n shit. Oh wait, they just want the fig and leaf eating part; ok. Well that’s only part of the season.
Just watch planet earth, it is a brutal animal world out there. Animals eat to live – and we’re smart enough to start being able to eat whenever we want to. That shouldn’t be a down fall in my opinion, but with certain foods we’ve developed (McDonalds) it kind of ruins that idea for most people, even leading people to believe it’s why we’re obese. And look where that’s gotten us. We even put corn syrup and menthol in cough medicine. Sorry, now I’m just getting off subject, haha.
I agree with Bruce on the Kitavans – sure you could only eat 10% animals; but why do that modern day when you could eat 100? Other then religious purposes as Matt so effortlessly stated above. I would know, my sister is a vegan and will say milk is unnatural as she drinks sodas and microwavable tofu pockets. In other words, she puts animals before her health. Even though she thinks what she’s doing is healthy, just like all the other vegans do. But if you walked outside you probably wouldn’t be able to last on a vegan diet alone. And just try to find wild wheat and grass seeds if the birds, who do eat that, haven’t already eaten it. :)
chlOe:
Many grasses other than wheat generate seed heads at around human hand level. Try not mowing an unweeded lawn for a while. Let a field go fallow.
I don’t KNOW that such seeds are the natural source of energy for humans. It just fits with certain aspects of our anatomy.
I don’t have the citation handy, but I vaguely recall something about archeological finds with over 60 types of seed stored before people took to agriculture.
Gathering by hand as we eat is slow. Wheat, barley, etc. have been bred to allow faster harvest and storage.
In ancient Israel, the poor were allowed to eat grain the old fashioned way in any field: pluck without tools and eat on the spot. The practice extended to New Testament times. (They also ate locusts…)
CSM; If you base everything (or just some things – which seems ridiculous to me) on what seems like typical human food, you can make anything seem like human food. Just read Doug Grahams book.
A hand is also nice for squeezing a cow teet, but I don’t base that on why I drink milk or cream.
Just saying – some people can live off of it, but just because we can pick some grains that are our height doesn’t mean they’re optimal for human nutrition. We can eat just about everything from what Price saw though..through the right combination or techniques..but grains aren’t the only option and especially not because we can pick them.
Won; I totally agree with you about the blogs, they’re great, and trying out a bunch of things.
Maybe the carbs from the white rice are better then the potatoes. I have no idea. I’ll let Matt and Bruce figure out your diagnosis or anyone else who wants to, haha.
I guess as long as you feel better on this just keep on going with it and adjusting things here and there to see what happens?
I eat broths over organs. No real reason, the only organ I’ve ever tried is liver. But there was something about the texture I didn’t like. I do have a tongue sitting in my freezer and I’m going to boil that. I think it’s high in fat, so alright!
Yes Chloe, you’re right. Human hands do make good teet squeezers. That was awesome by the way.
chlOe: Other animals are equipped to get their food: root eaters have claws for digging, carnivores teeth for hunting, grass eaters flat teeth for grinding, etc.
If the theory of evolution is true, then there was some proto-human which had limited tool making ability. What did such a proto human eat? And did our digestive systems change that much since then?
We are well equipped to find fruits (color vision), remove husks from seeds (nimble fingers with nails), grind seeds (pitted molars), etc. Hunting anything bigger/faster than bugs/clams/eggs/etc. requires significant technology. Nut eating requires some tool use, but within animal levels (smash with rock).
Scavenging or driving primary predators away from newly killed prey is a possibility, so eating meat from larger animals may well predate serious hunting ability. I don’t claim the high-meat paleo diet is wrong; only that other possibilities are reasonable. Experiment will determine what works best.
If we drop the idea of evolution, then the idea of being designed for cooked foods (and other technological foods) is credible, though not proven.
Ok then try living in the wilderness off fruit, seeds, eggs and bugs. I doubt they will all be available. Seriously are you reading anything I am presenting? I like a good discussion but this is getting kind of repetitive. We don’t have long carnivore jaws because with that we would not be able to form speech, something that is proven to be extremely important in our evolution…Birds have beaks and eat seeds (where are our beaks? Where are our bird-like digestive systems?)…Crows don’t have the ability to crush open some nuts by themselves so they find ways (cars – in the city) to crack em open. If a crow can figure out something like that (and not tell other crows they don’t have the beaks for such a thing), why dumb down the human population saying that our teeth our for seeds? If you’re going to get into evolution…they’re for crushing a plethora of things and we evolved from insectivores. Make anything chewable, and our jaws will chew it. Especially if it tastes good.
I’m sure I could think of some trap to catch squirrels faster then I could shuck (or even find) a thousand seeds and chew them. Or a bush of berries to get full on..oh yeah, party time, a berry bush. We do have brains. We are not limited to our features is all I’m saying – and reasons for our brain growing are pretty linked with meat consumption and cooking food (specifically cooking vegetation-less for the gut to deal with, more energy put into the brain work). And fire seemed to make us very social, as well as cooking.
Plus have you ever seen an aboriginal or african man hunt? We shouldn’t be reduced to the level of primitive man smashing nuts open and picking seeds. I’m just being realistic here
We aren’t “all animals” – our brains is beeg. A good tool, better then any teet squeezer, tooth or eye.
It seems we disagree on the meaning of evolution.
If all that meat and cooking was so bad for us, why would we have kept expanding? Wouldn’t all the meat eaters have died out and all the people who ate vegetation continued to live? That’s certainly not the case that I see. There’s a huge variety of diets out there. There’s a huge variety of healthy tribes and not all of them have seeds to open. Not all of them have meat either. So..I think it’s time for us to drop the “what are we designed for” theory, because our brains can pretty much decide that for us. tool, sharpen, throw, animal, food
Watch some animal documentaries, you might be surprised that life in the animal kingdom isn’t so simple as strictly root digger, carnivore, and grass eater.
We really are an incredible species. When we let ourselves be, that is.
bruce k,
i have been very interested in your comments…i know you have listed some foods you eat, but could you put of some samples of meals you eat, and what kinds of foods you combine. I have been reading alot of ray peat articles, and he doesn’t put any kind of sample menu up…he just talks here and there about what he eats…milk, ice cream, fruits, coconut oil, butter, and no PUFA’s ever.
thanks
troy
Matt, I find youe Einstein quote particularly humourous in this context as he is also widely quoted as having said
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
What tool song is the quote from?
chlOe: With our “beeg brains” we can also craft centrifugal juicers to get significant calories from raw carrots. I don’t think proto-humans had this option, however. Those raw food vegans who think we should use greens for protein are ignoring the features of our anatomy or lack thereof. We don’t ruminate so well.
It could be that a modern unnatural diet heavy in veggie juices is superior to a natural diet. Only experiment can determine.
Note that I am speculating, not claiming that we are supposed to eat raw seeds, vs. a high meat diet. Given the allergic reactions many have to seeds, this speculation could be incredibly wrong — or said allergies could be due to eating too much cooked seeds, or too much of the same seeds. More data required.
I am not suggesting a meat free diet! That B12 thing, again. I am questioning the assumption in paleo circles that grain eating is a “modern” innovation. Grain eating may predate large-animal hunting. Grain farming is “modern.”
Most people who can get access to starchy foods eat them, even if the local starches require sophisticated processing. What I wonder is if there were starches that didn’t require cooking/processing in the areas where proto-humans first arose? Or did our starch craving come later?
Our beeg brains also have instincts under all those layers of reason and culture. Frito Lay cashes in on our instinctive craving for crunchy and/or chewy starches.
Edward Howell commented on how large the human pancreas is compared to other mammals (in proportion to body size). Howell thought it was the result of eating cooked foods — environmental hytrophy vs. genetic norm. Would be interesting to know if anyone has measured Inuit pancreases or the pancreases of lifelong instinctos to determine if Howell was right. If not, maybe we have big pancreases as a response to a diet naturally high in enzyme inhibitors, just as cattle have four stomachs in response to a diet high in grass.
—-
Oh, one more thing: modern African hunters are not proto-humans. Proto humans are those beings who left behing human-like skulls in Africa with significantly smaller brain cases.
Why are we discussing proto humans if they had smaller brains? There were also Neanderthals, and they died out, so why try to copy em? If that’s what you’re saying. (I’m not completely sure what you’re talking about with proto humans..). I just think it’s better to roll with evolution then work in the past.
Yeah, monkeys can juice leaves with their teeth. It’s not that new of an invention on our part.
We can also build factories to produce frito lay…
And that was my point. We can eat pretty much anything; make anything chewable. So saying a grain or seed, just because it naturally can be chewed rather then a frito which is processed and then can be chewed…see where I’m going? You shouldn’t have brought up the “we can chew seeds and pick them” thing if you didn’t speculate otherwise. We can also hunt animals and they last a lot longer then seeds – nutritional wise and other. But I’m not claiming that’s why we should eat them (soley on the fact we can hunt them), that’s all. I do agree, experimenting determines – so why are you saying our external features (i.e. hands) give hints on what to do? They are just our leverages to our brains. There is so much complexity behind the primate group, and it’s not as simple as witnessing an anteater with a gigantic tongue, or a tiger with massive jaws. It’s not black and white and there are tons of exceptions even in the animal world, as well. You can’t compare the carnivore, shark, to the carnivore, tiger. We, and they, are all totally different species.
Frito Lay has a shit load of additives in it that are addicting; shave a carrot like a frito lay and I’ll spit that out, though it’s also crunchy (some people like it, but I doubt you could eat more carrots then fritos). But it also lacks salt, preservatives, refinement, and other things that can make you addicted to it. So where’s my instinct for crunchy there?
I’m sure if you went out and offered a group of tribesman the choice of meat or roots, they’d pick the meat. Or any animal product versus plant, it’s likely they’d go for the animal product. All the ancestors we had that tried to live off of [strictly] roots didn’t quite make it to homo sapien. Now, on the other hand, there were people who lived off of strictly meat. Yes, the starches can be additions to people’s food – but technically they aren’t necessary for survival, or as necessary as an animal product would be.
I know you weren’t suggesting a vegan diet, but you brought up B12, and the only other sources for it other then meat are feces and bugs (everything else is in too minimal amounts and it wouldn’t make sense to live off of, unless the person used supplements and thought that was a smart thing for our brains to do)
Yeah, our jaws also got smaller. It wasn’t just a change in organs; we cooked so many things probably that we didn’t have to nearly chew as much. And that’s a good thing! Instead of chewing on leaves for 19 hours straight, or some starchy tuber, we could eat easily, more easily digest our food, and expand our brains because energy went there instead of putting all the work into digestion. And our time went towards exploring or following herds.
So yes, we invented a juicer. We invented twinkies too. And we learned how to press oil out of vegetables. That’s got to be healthy, right?
How come the native americans, even after growing corn, still hunted buffalo, then?
Sure maybe you’ve found something that is healthy that no other native human being (who is more in touch with their instincts then most modern people) – by using your big brain to live off of. Maybe certain vegans have, too, because they made superior supplements and get protein from leaves (because they now have a juicer). I’m not saying you’re diet is wrong, but you are questioning some really [instinctually] smart people (native cultures) already out there. And making tweaks and adjustments to diets already being lived on seems like a much better idea then trying to adjust something else’s diet that lived so long ago we don’t even know what it truly ate. Just my opinion.
Sen,
Looks like Einstein was guilty of violating his own proclamation. Most vegetarianism stems from religious ideality – that it is wrong to kill something with fur, fins, feathers, and faces. Before religious or spiritual ideas, we were just humans, and we did what humans do – just like an owl, a wolf, and a Hammerhead shark do. Then we had to go and try to be something we’re not.
Tool lyrics come from track 69 or whatever it is at the end of Undertow album.
Troy, I don't have any menus or recipes. My meals vary and I try different combos to see what works and tastes best. I try lots of different things based on what I read and think about. The high-fat dogma is not justified, IMO. Two doctors using the "milk cure" said the fat had nothing to do with the cure and they skimmed off most or all of the fat, and still healed people. Charles Sanford Porter & Bernarr Macfadden both wrote books talking about this. Macfadden tested non-fat dry milk, and found it worked well for most people who couldn't get raw milk, if they mixed it with citrus juices. The human body is highly adaptable, as Matt has said – not just in health, but in sickness. There's not just "one way" to cure disease, like the low-carb gurus tell you. They refuse to admit that people thrive on high-carb diets like the Kitavas (about 69% carbs, 90% vegan, and only 2% PUFAs).
Eades tells people fat is essential. You can't justify a high-fat diet by saying that fat is essential. Adults don't need PUFAs in any meaningful amount. Growing children and nursing women need 0.1-0.5% PUFAs. Pregnant women may need 1%. That is what the scientific literature shows, not that you need to eat 60-85% fat each day to meet your needs, esp as an adult. Eating tiny amounts of animal foods will provide our PUFA needs in excess.
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/PUFA-Special-Report.html
Ray Peat and Chris Masterjohn have shown the fallacies in the idea that PUFAs are essential, esp for grown adults. Saying we need lots of fat-soluble vitamins is also a false argument, IMO. The WAPF has distorted Price's research and deceived people. Robert McCarrison's research has also shown some holes in Price's theory, like the lack of cavities in people with diets of 90% white rice. You don't need lots of fat-soluble vitamins, esp if you avoid toxic foods that deplete them like PUFA oils, refined sugar, bleached white flour, and other poisons.
I say to question everything, and do not base your diet on some guru's claim that you need large amounts of X nutrient (or food) to be healthy. The truth is nobody knows what we need and they just want to justify their flawed dogma. I think that you could be immune to all diseases on a 90% vegan diet, esp if grains and PUFAs were minimized or avoided.
There is no reason to eat large amounts of fat or low-carb, except the dogma of a few deluded gurus. Men like Eades and Atkins have about as much logic behind their arguments as and Fuhrman. They're all trying to justify their dogma based on flawed evidence. The low-carbers try to pretend that carbs in general caused all the problems, as opposed to refined, bleached, enriched carbs, usually mixed with PUFAs and trans fats. Fuhrman will admit that sugar, flour, and PUFA oils are problematic, but he tells people to stop eating animal foods and saturated fats which are merely "associated" with disease in the context of those refined carbs and vegetable oils. Both sides do not have a shred of integrity. They are at war and the first causalty of war is truth. They only care about winning and converting people to their religion. It is best to avoid both sides and see the middle ground (the wrong fats and carbs are dangerous, esp combined).
That's why I like this blog, because it is one of very few blogs that can admit the Kitava diet is healthy and that you can be healthy on a 90% vegan diet with no refined sugars, flours, or high-PUFA vegetable oils. Few other blogs realize or acknowledge these truths. They fight a war against carbs, and try to convert everyone to their religion.
Amen?
Chloe: “So yes, we invented a juicer. We invented twinkies too. And we learned how to press oil out of vegetables. That’s got to be healthy, right?”
Depends on what vegetable oils you mean. Tropical oils are healthy, IMO. The oils extracted without solvents and high temp are healthy. PUFA oils are pathological, esp when exposed to solvents, chemicals, heat, and light. Natural coconut oil has none of the problems the PUFA oils have.
I was referring to factory-made
coconut oil is dank son
“The truth is nobody knows what we need and they just want to justify their flawed dogma.”
B,
loved hearing you say this.
Yes, the more we think we know, the more we see how little we know (and of course the contradictions and loopholes of so-called dietary luminaries).
Nevertheless, some dietary practices seem more problematic than others, but with blogs such as this, birds of a similar feather come together into this liberating – yet not ignorant – uncertainty.
Kind wishes, J
If there is a take home message from people like Price and McCarrison, it is that a balanced diet is best. An all veggie diet is not feasible, but an all meat/all animal product diet may not be far behind in terms of its effect on human beings.
I find it interesting that both Price and McCarrison seemed to suggest that although a number of various diets may work, the best diets contained a mix of both plant and animal foods.
And, although Bruce finds starch and grains so problematic, I also find it interesting that both men held cereal grains in very high regard.
I’m not sure that what I just said conflicts with the spirit of Matt’s comments. But I think that it is perhaps erroneous for us to criticize vegans/vegetarians for their diet from a position that is different, but equally extreme in its view.
At the end of the day, I think a diet that includes cereals, dairy, meat, root vegetables, fruit, and green leafy vegetables is probably the optimum human diet, both in terms of nutrient value and its enjoyment for us (who wants to just eat meat for the rest of his or her life?.
thanks for the comment bruce!
Also, thanks for responding to my post on the AV skeptics board…i was having breathing problems after ingesting brown rice, undercooked veggies, and dry chicken breast. I dont ever want to eat brown rice again…. i am kinda afraid to eat veggies now too.
I know low carbing to long for me doesn’t work… i felt great when i finally added carbs to my high fat protein intake.
Also bruce…what are your thoughts on gluten? Do you think its the fiber/PUFA’s in the products that are really causing the problems associated with gluten?
Also matt… I keep forgetting to tell you, This blog is great!!!! I have alot to think about after reading yours and bruces comments and thoughts.
thankyou
troy
Ben said “I find it interesting that both Price and McCarrison seemed to suggest that although a number of various diets may work, the best diets contained a mix of both plant and animal foods.”
I’m not sure how you can come to this conclusion. What problems did I overlook Price noting about the almost pure animal Inuit and Masaai diets?
Sen
Ben: “And although Bruce finds starch and grains so problematic, I also find it interesting that both men held cereal grains in very high regard. “
They also said those foods are deficient and had to be eaten with other foods. It seems their praise was very conditional. Certain foods increase nutritional needs and others decrease them. I’m interested in what provides the most health benefit and that is not grains or starches, IMO. At least not for all people or even most of them. Matt gave this quote from Price in his “Status of the Puzzle” thread.
“The excess of calories over body building minerals is exceedingly high in sweets of various kinds regardless of their special branding and the methods of manufacture and storage. There is very little of the body building minerals in maple syrup, cane syrup from sugar or honey. They can all defeat an otherwise efficient dietary.”
First of all, nobody ever said that such foods could be used for “body-building.” What I said is that you can eat them and not suffer the diseases of civilization, from cavities to cancer to heart attack. Where is the proof that “unheated” honey and maple syrup will cause deficiency if added to a diet containing cheese, eggs, meat, or other animal foods? I’d like to see your evidence (or Matt’s or Price’s) that maple syrup would cause disease in the complete absence of white flour and sugar and PUFA oils. Prove I will suffer deficiency by replacing starch with raw honey, fruit, maple syrup, carrots, and beets. I had no cavities eating lots of orange juice and milk as a kid. Drinking one soft drink a day (sipping it) caused me to develop several cavities. My teeth are now immune to cavities, even though I only brush them sometimes with water.
It doesn’t take much minerals to prevent tooth decay and other health problems. A diet with just starches and no sugars is not essential. Many doctors even dispute the idea that refined sugar causes tooth decay (by itself). I bet soft drinks are a lot more dangerous than eating refined sugar dry from the bag. Eating high-PUFA oils is probably a catalyst for cavities like it is for other diseases. There’s a lot more to tooth decay and other health problems than Price or McCarrison found. Cavities are multi-factorial, like other diseases. You have to look at the entire diet to determine risk. Sugar’s probably a lot more harmful in meals with protein and fat than with fruits and vegetables. That’s why the studies associate disease with meat, because people are eating the meat with refined sugar and/or starch. I think Price and McCarrison provide a lot of interesting insights, but neither one could see the big picture. They show you some more pieces of the puzzle, but they ignore the missing pieces.
Sen: “I’m not sure how you can come to this conclusion. What problems did I overlook Price noting about the almost pure animal Inuit and Masaai diets?”
He didn’t think they were the healthiest or most robust group, AFAIK. He said the healthiest groups were the tribes eating starches and seafood, I think.
Matt,
You may be wasting your time. Let them take their own medicine.
Been there done that too, on the webmd and McDougall’s site. They are all very rigid except a handful, may be 2 or 3 of some long-term vegans who may have ruined their health to such an extent (mostly weak bones, poor immune resistance, depressions and auto-immune) that it makes them ask some real questions. Most of the rest of those vegans, in my experience are not only sick but also intellectually rigid, lack curiosity and are totally intolerant towards diversity of life. Regards,
Stan (Heretic)
Stan: “Most of the rest of those vegans, in my experience are not only sick but also intellectually rigid, lack curiosity and are totally intolerant towards diversity of life.”
You can say the same about many low-carb gurus and followers, who are dogmatic in saying things like wheat and salicylates are inherently toxic, because THEY have problems. They never bother to consider that maybe their problems were caused by eating a low-fat diet or at least a diet low in fat-soluble vitamins. Peter D. on the HyperLipid blog blames wheat for all the evils in the world and acts like it is inherently unhealthy. But look at his past diet. He ate whole wheat bread with peanut butter and a banana. Duh! There’s no fat soluble vitamins, a ton of PUFAs, fiber, aflatoxin and lectins from peanut butter, etc. To say that there are other explanations for his bad experience with wheat is an understatement. Plus, I will bet that his whole wheat bread contained rancid fat and was not fresh. But try to convince him that maybe there were other reasons for his problems besides gluten, and see if he will listen.
Diabetes and hunger
I don’t think there’s ?nything bad about gluten, unless you eat it in the context of PUFAs (esp rancid), refined sugar, or a lack of fat-soluble vitamins. Sprouted or fermented wheat is probably healthier than fresh, but many healthy natives ate fresh gluten grains and thrived. There’s nothing inherently toxic about wheat, IF you obey the traditional rules of eating as opposed to modern notions (like vegan or low-fat diets including wheat).
Sen,
For your reading pleasure:
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_mccarrison1.html
“So we are on surer ground when we consider the foodstuffs which, when properly combined in the diet, are known to ensure perfect nutrition and a high grade of physical efficiency and health in human beings. These foodstuffs are:
1. A good whole cereal grain or mixture of whole cereal grains or a good wholemeal bread.
2. Milk and the products of milk — butter, cheese, curds, buttermilk.
3. Egg.
4. Green leaf vegetables.
5. Root vegetables — potatoes, carrots, etc.
6. Legumes.
7. Fruit.
8. Meat.
9. Water.”
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/out_of_africa.html
“The healthiest tribe that Price studied was the Dinkas, a Sudanese tribe on the western bank of the Nile. They were not as tall as the cattle-herding Neurs groups but they were physically better proportioned and had greater strength. Their diet consisted mainly of fish and cereal grains. This is perhaps the greatest lesson of Price’s African research’that a diet of whole foods, one that avoids the extremes of the carnivorous Masai and the largely vegetarian Bantu, but incorporates both nutrient dense grains and seafood, ensures optimum physical development.”
-Ben S.
Bruce said: They also said those foods are deficient and had to be eaten with other foods. It seems their praise was very conditional. Certain foods increase nutritional needs and others decrease them. I’m interested in what provides the most health benefit and that is not grains or starches, IMO. At least not for all people or even most of them.
I think this comment reveals the fundamental flaw in your thinking. The search for the perfect food in isolation will probably be an endless one. True, grains/cereals may cause deficiencies if eaten in isolation. But they probably provide nutrients that are difficult to acquire otherwise. Moreover, perhaps the combination of cereals and, say, fat soluble vitamins not only blunts any negative effect of the grains/cereals, but actually enhances their positives–and, indeed, is enhanced in return–so that the combination of these foods provides an extremely healthy meal that is perhaps unparalleled among our food choices.
And, indeed, that is perhaps the central theme of Price and McCarrison’s work: foods ought not be viewed in isolation, but seen as having an individual role in a balanced diet.
You should be familiar with this concept, because it is the exact corollary of what you frequently preach. You are so often saying that the combination of foods may explain problems that arise and which might be avoided by either in isolation. Price and McCarrison very clearly believe that arguably the worst of foods in isolation become the healthiest in the right combination.
Bruce said: “I’d like to see your evidence (or Matt’s or Price’s) that maple syrup would cause disease in the complete absence of white flour and sugar and PUFA oils.”
I’d like you to show me where I said maple syrup would cause disease. Where did Price say this? You do realize that WAPF and Price openly endorse(d) molasses, honey, maple syrup, etc., right? Thomas Cowan, one of the original directors of WAPF, has a friggen testimonial for Really Raw Honey, your favorite brand, for crying out loud.
http://www.reallyrawhoney.com/testimonials.php
You’re hacking at strawmen, Bruce.
Bruce said: “I think Price and McCarrison provide a lot of interesting insights, but neither one could see the big picture. They show you some more pieces of the puzzle, but they ignore the missing pieces.”
These men traveled the world and made a variety of first-hand observations. By contrast, you frequently support your assertions with nothing more than your own personal experience. (Indeed, we are all too aware that you had nary a cavity as a child on a diet of orange juice, milk, meat, honey, no PUFAs, low fiber, etc.). I submit that their observations should not be so easily dismissed for sake of your individual experience.
The fact is that Price and McCarrison came to strikingly similar conclusions merely by observing. And they repeatedly found that individuals eating a diet with a mix of plant and animal foods produced superior health to diets based predominantly, if not exclusively, on either category. I’m not sure you disagree with that fact.
-Ben S.
Ben, the quote that you present related to Price is not actually a quote of his but one of Fallon and Enig’s interpreting his work. I have not read all of Price’s notes which they may have access to, just Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, but in NaPD Price writes only this of the Dinkas:
“Dinkas, Jebelein, Sudan. This tribe lives on the Nile. Its members are not as tall as the Neurs. They are physically better proportioned and have greater strength. They use fish from the Nile and cereals for their diet. They decorate their bodies profusely with scars. An examination of 592 teeth of twenty-two individuals revealed only one tooth with caries, or 0.2 per cent.”
Of the Masai he writes
“The Masai are tall and strong…These members of the Masai tribe illustrate the splendid nutrition provided by their diet of cattle products…In the Masai tribe, a study of 2,516 teeth in eighty-eight individuals distributed through several widely separated manyatas showed only four individuals with caries. These had a total of ten carious teeth, or only 0.4 per cent of the teeth attacked by tooth decay.”
I’m not sure from where Fallon/Enig get the idea that the Dinkas were significantly healthier than the Masai, as the only difference described between them is the caries, and that difference and the sample sizes are small enough to not be statistically significant. Another group, the Muhima, are described as having a diet identical to the Masai and “In a study of 1,040 teeth of thirty-seven individuals, not a single tooth was found with dental caries.”
When discussing Dental Irregularities Price does not give data for all tribes, but of those that he does the tribe with the fewest is the Masai with only 3.4%. He does not name the Dinkas by name, but does write that “among the grain eaters of the west Nile, 25.5 per cent had irregularities.” Jebelain, or Gebelain is west of the Nile so I assume that he is talking about the Dinkas here. 25.5% irregularities does not strike me as being anywhere near the optimum of physical development.
Maybe Price goes into more detail in his notes that Fallon and Enig have read, but based solely on his writings published in NaPD I must conclude that the “lesson” in the Enig/Fallon quote you provided has no basis in reality. Based on what Price published I see no reason to assume that the Masai and Mahuma nearly carnivorous diet is deleterious or that the mixed diet of the Dinkas is superior in any way. Unless Price left out a significant amount of data from NaPD it appears that Fallon/Enig have added their own pro-cereal bias to their interpretation of his work.
I have not read any of McCarrisons work.
Bruce wrote
“He didn’t think they were the healthiest or most robust group, AFAIK. He said the healthiest groups were the tribes eating starches and seafood, I think.”
Bruce, In skimming through NaPD I couldn’t find anything to support this contention. In searching online I found quite a few pages claiming that Price claimed the Dinkas were the healthiest tribe, but they all quoted nearly verbatim from the Enig/Fallon article that I think I effectively cast doubt upon in my previous post.
Sen
My dental hygienist, who appears to be very current in her literature reading, told me the problematic foods for cavities are not sugary foods but starchy foods. She said starchy foods provide the acid environment that promotes the activity of cavity causing bacteria. She said the bacteria is communicable so I wonder if the starch eating isolated peoples didn’t have the cavity causing bacteria until we showed up.
First off,
Bruce, your long-winded comment about a dozen comments up was outstanding. I really enjoyed it, and it was right on, summarized by Chloe, accurately, with an “amen.”
Weston A. Price does speak very negatively about honey, maple syrup, etc. That’s a WAP quote that was taken from the Status of the Puzzle thread. He says such foods can ruin an otherwise sufficient diet. I’m not saying he’s right, but the WAPF endorsing raw honey, maple syrup, rapadura, and molasses has absolutely nothing to do with the research of WAP.
The Fallon/Enig quote used by Ben also has nothing to do with WAP. Price didn’t get into the better/best arguments too much. He was just looking for commonalities among diets. It would seem he was most impressed with Eskimos and Maori if you had to pick a couple, as both had the lowest rates of dental decay.
Thomas Cowan isn’t healthy, neither are most disciples of Weston A. Price. If you want to study health, longevity, and vitality – listen to Patricia Bragg, not Mary Enig. Enig is senile, withered, and gray at her age. Bragg, in her 80’s, looks like 60, is hearty, ruddy, sharp, energetic, and has tits that defy gravity despite never wearing a bra. If she lived to be a day less than 100 with anything less than superb health I would be shocked. Sure, she has her dad’s genes, but he was running 5 miles a day and standing on his head with ease at 93. Cowan has an insulin belly and will probably have a coronary event within the next 10 years.
Bruce,
Have you read T.L. Cleave’s books? I think you would be a big fan. There is really good info. in there about the white sugar/white flour combo. in causing tooth decay. Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease is his best. Although they do overly endorse fiber with Burkitt-esque enthusiasm, which I know you’ll frown upon.
Lisa,
No one had significant levels of cavities until…
White flour and white sugar appeared.
White rice appears to be different. Many authors, such as Cleave and McCarrison noted that white rice didn’t cause cavities. Cleave showed clearly that white flour and white sugar did.
Here are some Cleave quotes…
?The saccharine disease includes dental decay and pyorrhea; gastric and duodenal ulcer and other forms of indigestion; obesity, diabetes, and coronary disease; constipation, with its complications of varicose veins and hemorrhoids; and primary Escherichia coli infections, like appendicitis, cholecystitis (with or without gall-stones), and primary infections of the urinary tract. The same applies to certain skin condition. Not one of these diseases is for practical purposes ever seen in races who do not consume refined carbohydrates.
?To summarize, those who eat unrefined carbohydrates are candidates for salvation over periodontal disease; those who eat refined carbohydrates never are.
??what matters in the production of caries is not the quantity of carbohydrates consumed, but the form in which they are consumed ? to be more accurate, whether they have been refined or not. A whole cartload of carbohydrates in the form of raw apples or sugar-beet, for example, would do the teeth nothing but good, whereas a few cases of refined, sweet biscuits, leaving a sticky residue around the teeth, could initiate the fermentative processes responsible for decay and therefore do the teeth great harm.
??refined rice when moistened does not become sticky like refined flour, and therefore those races living on milled rice and very little else are singularly free from caries.
?The chief problem in the present diet, however, concerns how to avoid eating ordinary sugar, and all the sweet things containing it.
T. L. Cleave: “…what matters in the production of caries is not the quantity of carbohydrates consumed, but the form in which they are consumed ? to be more accurate, whether they have been refined or not.”
I think PUFAs are also involved, usually as a catalyst for degenerative processes and immune suppression. Mixing sugar and flour is much worse than either eaten by itself. Adding corn oil or safflower oil or soybean or sunflower makes this combo of sugar and flour even worse. Mixing in HFCS instead of cane or beet sugar makes it much worse. Mixing in acids or sticky things (like caramel and toffee) creates even more favorable conditions for tooth decay and other diseases.
“A whole cartload of carbohydrates in the form of raw apples or sugar-beet, for example, would do the teeth nothing but good, whereas a few cases of refined, sweet biscuits, leaving a sticky residue around the teeth, could initiate the fermentative processes responsible for decay and therefore do the teeth great harm.”
What if the carbohydrates were cooked? I think they will still be harmless to the teeth, unless the person was also eating white flour, refined sugar, soft drinks, candy, pastries, and so on. And in terms of evil, you have to put acidic soda and high fructose corn syrup in a far worse category than white sugar eaten dry from the bag, all by itself. I will challenge anyone to sip on Cokes for several hours a day day while I eat an equal amount of dry white sugar from the bag. Neither of us brush our teeth. I bet they get tooth decay and I don’t. Eating acidic food or food that sticks to the teeth is clearly a factor in cavities. Flour and molasses and caramelized sugar and toffee are far worse than dry white sugar by itself. If you bathe your teeth in acids and sticky foods frequently, or for long periods of the day, you may get tooth decay, esp if your diet is highly deficient.
Enig is a mess. Have you seen her in the Fat Head movie clips on YouTube? It’s on DVD now too. You can get it from Amazon, or maybe rent it in some places. She had cancer and chemotherapy or so I’ve heard from second or third-hand reports.
http://www.fathead-movie.com/
http://www.youtube.com/fatheadmovie
Maybe Patricia Bragg’s breasts are firm, because of not wearing bras, not despite it. I doubt if the women in the cultures Price studied wore bras. There were some topless pictures of the Masai women from Price’s book. They were saggy. Has Bragg had kids? That’s another factor, IMO. Or just having large breasts will make them sag more with time probably.
“Price didn’t get into the better/best arguments too much. He was just looking for commonalities among diets. It would seem he was most impressed with Eskimos and Maori if you had to pick a couple, as both had the lowest rates of dental decay.”
I thought he considered the Gaelic much healthier than the Eskimo. Tooth decay’s not the only variable in health. Having nose bleeds that last for days and leave you incapacitated is not healthy, IMO. I think the Eskimos ate the wrong diet for their lifestyle (living in warm igloos). If they wanted to eat like a polar bear, caribou, seal, or fish, they should have lived like those animals.
“Weston A. Price does speak very negatively about honey, maple syrup, etc. That’s a WAP quote that was taken from the Status of the Puzzle thread. He says such foods can ruin an otherwise sufficient diet. I’m not saying he’s right, but the WAPF endorsing raw honey, maple syrup, rapadura, and molasses has absolutely nothing to do with the research of WAP.”
The Masai ate honey and had virtually no tooth decay. It has something to do with T. L. Cleave’s research and others, that unrefined carbs are healthy. Many people have used raw unheated honey to cure all sorts of problems, including diabetes. I think it should be considered separately from molasses and any kind of granulated sugar (refined or not). Maple syrup also has a long history of healing. The Grade B variety is richest in minerals.
“Have you read T.L. Cleave’s books? I think you would be a big fan. There is really good info. in there about the white sugar/white flour combo. in causing tooth decay. Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease is his best.”
I downloaded his book years ago after I heard about it from Atkins. I have read some of it, but not all. People in WAPF seem to eat lots of starches mixed with sugars, and that is dangerous, esp with PUFAs (vegetable or fish oil). Also raw honey is usually a fraud.
Lisa: “My dental hygienist, who appears to be very current in her literature reading, told me the problematic foods for cavities are not sugary foods but starchy foods. She said starchy foods provide the acid environment that promotes the activity of cavity causing bacteria.”
I think white flour is probably a larger factor in cavities than many admit. Matt has mentioned the finding that people on white rice did not get cavities, but the ones on white flour did. There are other factors, however, like eating foods that contain acid, esp eating them frequently or for long periods of time. Sipping on a soft drink while watching a movie will probably destroy your teeth a lot faster than eating the same amount of sugar dry from the bag. (I am excluding sodas made with HFCS, i.e. most in the USA. Mexican Coke’s made with sugar.) For the sake of comparing like to like, I would say that someone sipping on a Mexican Coke during a two-hour movie will have more cavities than someone eating equal sugar from the bag, dry and by itself.
“She said the bacteria is communicable so I wonder if the starch eating isolated peoples didn’t have the cavity causing bacteria until we showed up.”
Eating acidic or sticky foods frequently or for a long period of time can promote decay. Things that weaken your immunity, like too much omega-3 fat, can also make the situation worse IMO. White flour has more cavity causing potential than white rice, maybe because the rice not broken, so it’s less perishable and doesn’t tend to stick as much as flour. Gluten may be another factor making flour harmful, esp when eaten without fat soluble vitamins, as many people nowadays do.
Ben: “The search for the perfect food in isolation will probably be an endless one. True, grains/cereals may cause deficiencies if eaten in isolation. But they probably provide nutrients that are difficult to acquire otherwise.”
I’m not looking for the perfect food to eat in isolation, just saying that some foods are better by themselves. I think potatoes, carrots, beets, fruits, honey and maple syrup are better carb sources than grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. It is not just what a food has which makes iti better, but what they don’t have or are low in (like toxins).
“Moreover, perhaps the combination of cereals and, say, fat soluble vitamins not only blunts any negative effect of the grains/cereals, but actually enhances their positives–and, indeed, is enhanced in return–so that the combination of these foods provides an extremely healthy meal that is perhaps unparalleled among our food choices.”
I haven’t denied that, but maybe eating fat-soluble vitamins and animal protein without grains, legumes, nuts, or seeds would be even better. Because you don’t have the negative effects to blunt, and you have more nutrients, and less fiber, PUFAs, toxins, or anti-nutrients. Would you not enhance the positive effects of those foods and come out ahead?
“You are so often saying that the combination of foods may explain problems that arise and which might be avoided by either in isolation. Price and McCarrison very clearly believe that arguably the worst of foods in isolation become the healthiest in the right combination.”
But your math doesn’t add up. If fruits, vegetables, and potatoes are better than grains, beans, nuts, and seeds, then how would they be worse when combined with a generous amount of fat-soluble vitamins, complete protein, and so on? I don’t see how the worst food in isolation would be better than a superior food, if both are combined in the same way. Like cheese in combination with fruit or unheated honey may beat cheese with grains. Potato with lobster and butter will blow away grains with lobster and butter, IMO.
I did not know this
“Maple syrup has long been part of the Mohawk diet as far back as the early 1700’s. Cutting the trees, gathering the sap in bark containers and boiling it until it turned to syrup. It was described as very healing and almost always has a burnt taste. The Maple ceremony in March is devoted to giving thanks to the Creator for this sweet healthy treat. The one day ceremony begins with the Ohenton Kariwatchkwen and tobacco burning. The Maple sap is passed around, and then the dancing begins. Drinking the sap of the maple tree during the ceremony is believed to have a cleansing effect on the body. In Wahta the dances include the Great Feather Dance, The Woman’s Dance and the Food and Pigeon Dance. Afterwards is the closing thanks followed by the meal.
Update – Unfortunately, the current maple bush has been hit by a large infestation of caterpillars and will require some time for recovery. Please e-mail Administration for further info.”
something about adding the word bush to the ends of things just makes them really funny – and when caterpillars are attacking it, I mean, I had to include that part at the end
heres the link
http://www.wahta.ca/syrup.htm
but yeah ..just thouuught I’d throw that out there
but it seems they don’t eat it often if they’re suggesting it’s used in ceremonies – but I read on wikipedia they used it in drinks and in cooking;
sugar’s also about that old if not older
so the question is if these things were just the start of something unnecessary or if they were harmless in the sense that they weren’t being eaten with eggos and bacon
Ben: “These men traveled the world and made a variety of first-hand observations. By contrast, you frequently support your assertions with nothing more than your own personal experience. (Indeed, we are all too aware that you had nary a cavity as a child on a diet of orange juice, milk, meat, honey, no PUFAs, low fiber, etc.). I submit that their observations should not be so easily dismissed for sake of your individual experience.”
All observations are anecdotal. Observing people eating grains who are healthy doesn’t prove that grains are healthy, esp when they were eating other foods. They might have been healthy in spite of grains, not because of them. A good conclusion would be that their diet as a whole is balanced. I also ate potatoes,.carrots, beets, and small amounts of bread, and pasta. Very little sugar (occasional ice cream or chocolate). When I had home-made biscuits, I ate butter and honey with them (not raw honey). So, I will dismiss anyone who says that unrefined carbs cause tooth decay, obesity, cancer, allergies, etc.
Charles recently made this silly pronoucement in one of his blog posts: “It seems that a diet of 95 percent or more from animal fats and animal proteins will guard against caries (and metabolic syndrome) but it is unknown if a diet that is 75 percent meat with 25 percent carbohydrates will so protect. It may be that one has to confine themselves to meat and supplement if they so desire with dairy foods and eggs in order to avoid the dentist.” Price and McCarrison and Cleave found otherwise.
http://blog.zeroinginonhealth.com/?p=492
“The fact is that Price and McCarrison came to strikingly similar conclusions merely by observing. And they repeatedly found that individuals eating a diet with a mix of plant and animal foods produced superior health to diets based predominantly, if not exclusively, on either category. I’m not sure you disagree with that fact.”
I find their conclusions very different. There is no way Price’s research can square with McCarrison’s observation that Indians eating 90% white rice had no cavities. According to Price, fat-soluble vitamins are essential to prevent decay and the WAPF has promoted this idea to an even greater extreme than Price did. My own view is that certain foods (like refined sugar, bleached white flour, PUFA oils, and maybe wheat in general) increase the need for fat-soluble vitamins or deplete them. And I have never said that most people should eat predominantly animal food or plant food. Many diets can work, if certain foods are minimized or avoided. Different people probably thrive on different foods and combinations and ratios. And even refined foods would be less harmful if they weren’t mixed in with other refined foods (refined sugar, white flour, and PUFA oils being the most harmful mixture). For example, I remember as a kid sometimes having fresh strawberries rolled in sugar for dessert. I had no cavities, despite eating foods like that occasionally. So I am not convinced that sugar alone is capable of causing cavities. When mixed with white flour and vegetable oils, I think that sugar is far more likely to cause tooth decay. Doughnuts are a lot more likely to rot your teeth than strawberries rolled in sugar. Coke is a lot more likely to rot your teeth than pasteurized milk and orange juice. That is simple fact.
Mary Enig did get get cancer and have chemo. My last naturopathic doctor told me about that. Her sister did the cover for the newer editon of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration for the Price Pottenger Foundation, she also worked closely with the WAPF. We stopped believing in the WAPF too…after seeing how unhealthy alot of them are…and sally making up all kinds of her own philosiphies, and then when we heard mary got cancer. Mary’s diet looks kinda weird, and conventional from the looks of it on her board member food journal. I also heard the Price Pottenger foundation isn’t to pleased with sally and the WAPF distorting everything Price wrote about.
The only thing we can do is try to make sense of all this on our own, which we are doing with blogs like these. Since the time i started eating lots of saturated fat again, and cutting out the junk, i haven’t had any health problems or cavities. Thats all I know.
troy
Matt: “Thomas Cowan isn’t healthy, neither are most disciples of Weston A. Price… Cowan has an insulin belly and will probably have a coronary event within the next 10 years.”
What do you think of low-carb gurus like Eades and Atkins and Bernstein? Are they healthy? Or do you think their diets are flawed, like Charles and others? They’ve brainwashed themselves that “low-carb is healthy” no matter what, and vice versa. They gleefully tell people to eat crappy artificial sweeteners, processed protein powders, protein shakes, etc. These guys have people convinced it’s better to eat lunch meat than an apple. (As if anybody they know got fat on fruit.)
You can’t really say why Thomas Cowan is unhealthy, any more than you can say why Ben degenerated on the Primal Diet. I am still not sure what his problem was even after you and he shared your theories on the subject. Your theories didn’t agree, or add up, IMO. Plus, how do you know it is always unhealthy to have a pot belly? Just because it’s unhealthy for somebody eating SAD? I think we can find healthy groups that are fat. It all depends what they are eating to get fat. I doubt that belly fat is always unhealthy. It’s only been shown to be healthy within certain cultures, IMO. You might have advantages because you tore your body down and then built it up again (the Wind River Diet). Maybe an old guy like Thomas Cowan won’t have that advantage, or a morbidly obese menopausal woman, etc. Maybe if they did what you did, they would be healthier. I just don’t think you can judge others on the basis of your own health.
isn’t it true that pot bellies are a sign that you can not distribute fat correctly… it’s called “visceral fat”
You could argue that fat people are healthy all you wanted, but I don’t know how convincing that would be seeing most of the people who do have messed up diets in America do have abnormal stomach fat growth. Pertaining to the majority of the population, because they don’t have any sort of tribal diet, you could probably assume that this Cowan dude has got the same problems as everyone else. What does he eat? Is it anywhere near what a native culture with supposedly a pot belly would eat? Other then that I don’t see relevance. But people with messed up insulin/imbalanced hormones seem to have pot bellies.
I can thoroughly remember my type 1 diabetic friend in middle school – she always had this pot belly that stuck out but the rest of her body parts were small. She always joked about it and wondered why. She still does (only now with more fat everywhere – though still with emphasis on the stomach), because she is very apathetic about her diet and eats sugar all the time anyway, despite her blood sugar and insulin. Not dissing my friend here, just explaining her situation. That insulin can play a role here.
i think alot of these people can almost eat the correct type of nutrition but they lack the intense intermentant physical aspect of it. It doesn’t look like cowen would be the type to do sprints or a deadlift. Lots of people eat like crap i know and are in super shape…but they do things like intense brief lifting and they surf all the time. When i move back to encinitas, CA i feel like i get instantly healthier, i am out in the sun all the time, surf all the time, and feel better overall just from that. too many people stay indoors…
troy
On the potbelly thing, I always find it interesting that kids, even skinny healthy ones, often have huge potbellies. I’ve seen many pics of HG kids with HUGE potbellies. The HG parents have small ones. Part of it seems postural. We can all make our bellies look bigger if we stick them out a little. Or smaller if we suck them in. As a rolfer, I see lots of clients who are hurting their backs by sucking in their gut all day.
Also, stress and chronically elevated cortisol are huge contributors to potbellies as well as other health problems. I would bet that chronic high stress and other factors aside from diet (such as sleep and exercise) could create a potbelly or other health issue even if the diet was great. So you can’t really look at a person who doesn’t look so good and say their diet is no good for others. Maybe their diet is fabulous for 90% of people but for some reason it is bad for them.
Chloe: “isn’t it true that pot bellies are a sign that you can not distribute fat correctly…”
I don’t know if belly fat is a “sign” of anything, except eating SAD or a similar diet. As I have mentioned before, Taubes said that one group fattened their wives by feeding them milk. Probably raw milk, given the time period. Would those women have been at risk of Western diseases on such a diet? I doubt it. They might have been at risk from the weight all the fat on their bones, but then again maybe the bones were stronger on natural food than they would be in obese people eating Big Macs, fries, and soft drinks filled with high fructose corn syrup.
I’ve heard that some native groups, like the Samoans, were fat or had a pot belly and yet as long as they ate their normal traditional foods they did not have the diseases and health problems associated with that condition in the West. Saying that Thomas Cowan has an “insulin belly” and he will have a coronary event in 10 years is hyperbole, IMO. Many people do not have coronary events or any disease related to being overweight. Aajonus is telling all his clients (men and women) that they should force-feed themselves and put on weight so they have a belly. Are they dropping dead of heart attacks in large numbers? Not AFAIK. So I think you have to consider the foods that are used to gain weight. Milk and honey are probably different than burgers, fries, doughnuts, cookies, and soft drinks. (I could be wrong.)
“You could argue that fat people are healthy all you wanted, but I don’t know how convincing that would be seeing most of the people who do have messed up diets in America do have abnormal stomach fat growth.”
I’m not talking about people eating the American diet, so those people and their health problems are totally irrelevant. Find a primitive group that force-feeds their wives on milk to gain weight or a modern group eating fresh food in large amounts (esp animal food and honey) and see if they have health problems due to excess weight or belly fat. All of these problems only exist in certain cultural contexts and only in the West. The sumo wrestlers probably don’t have any health problems except related to the strain of their excess weight. Those problems may be due to the deficiencies of their rice heavy diet, preventing their bones from adapting to the weight. I think you can find some group eating natural food that is heavy and has no health problems and not even any joint pain.
“But people with messed up insulin/imbalanced hormones seem to have pot bellies.”
Maybe because they don’t eat enough fat, and not because they eat too much carbs. Aajonus tells people to eat lots of fat and carbs – like butter and honey for a snack. He says this causes an even body fat distribution that protects the body and doesn’t cause health problems. Plus he believes that it’s healthier to have more body fat (like 20-25%). Maybe he’s right Maybe modern people need more fat and they should stop worrying about it, and simply eat better. Matt’s obsession with weight doesn’t prove that thinness is healhty, nor does Charles W’s. Maybe the problem is not weight but how it is gained (whether you’re eating fast food and junk food or real food).
Troy: “i think alot of these people can almost eat the correct type of nutrition but they lack the intense intermentant physical aspect of it. It doesn’t look like cowen would be the type to do sprints or a deadlift. Lots of people eat like crap i know and are in super shape…but they do things like intense brief lifting and they surf all the time. When i move back to encinitas, CA i feel like i get instantly healthier, i am out in the sun all the time, surf all the time, and feel better overall just from that. too many people stay indoors…”
This was such a good post that it bears repeating. Can I get an Amen? Sitting at a desk, on a couch, or in a recliner all day has never been shown to be any thing but detrimental to your body and health. Going out for a walk in the sun would do more for your health than the best diet, while sitting motionless indoors.
Bruce,
I’m a big fan of intense intermittent exercise and do it myself. However, after reading he book Adrenal Fatigue, which discusses the problems with burned out adrenal glands, I wonder whether HIT would be counterproductive for people with “burned out adrenals.” Although intense exercise will give you an adrenal boost that will make you feel better in the short term, it might tax the already tired adrenals in an unsustainable way. A better solution might to to let them rest. Schwarzbein recommends this approach, and admits that long term healing might make you feel worse in the short term. Barnes seems to have a similar opinion about exercise and he was dealing with a population of people who were likely to have weak adrenals.
first of all, force feeding is stress building
that’s high cortisol/adrenaline – hormones that become distrupted
the fact that it’s also high in sugars could affect their insulin as well (and perhaps if they were trying to purposefully fatten them, they may have skimmed the milk, like farmers who try to fatten livestock – but what tribes are you even talking about so that this can be more clear?)
Perhaps it isn’t irrelevant. You can mess up your hormones on any diet, and it doesn’t have to be standard and american only.
Obviously you said a lot of people have had trouble with Aajonus’s diet, so I don’t know why you bring that up. How much butter versus how much honey? They could be storing fat but also loosing muscle. Unless you work out, but I don’t think that means you’re healthy. You can work out on any diet and seem healthy, feel healthy and look healthy, but that doesn’t mean you are – you could crash any day and not know what hit you. Even eating all naturale. Which makes sense, because you can become deficient eating only butter and honey for the rest of your life and will probably die sooner then most. No I’m not saying that’s all Aajonus’s diet is, but it’s an example that whole foods aren’t always the best just because they’re whole.
” The life expectancy of sumo wrestlers is much shorter than that of the spectators that watch them do battle. Most of them die of coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes in their 50s. During their final years they suffer from gout, high blood pressure and the complications of type 2 diabetes.”
Sounds like most over weight Americans if you ask me…
Ok, but look at this guys suggestions. Wolfing down rotting meat? He’s trying to mimic a man in the wild by starving himself and then gorging on food. I’m sorry, but I don’t find that appealing. If he has extra weight, that’s probably why. And if he wants to assume everyone else will, he can go ahead and do that. We live in a modern world – and he’s saying we are supposed to have excess fat but live on a primitive diet. I don’t see how this makes sense.
I don’t think you should assume everyone is obsessed with weight. Maybe you are because you don’t ever want to stop moving. It sounds like it. In Matt’s case, I find it compelling that someone could be slightly active and eat so much, yet remain healthy – but it makes sense, and that’s the important part; to me at least. I don’t think he’s doing it out of gluttony but from what he believes…that’s definitely not obsessing over weight, but being aware of health. If you are healthy…truly…then you should be able to put your food into work for the right reasons (maintaining cells, organs, muscle, hormones, and not storing it for fat). It’s not like he’s sitting there fermenting and doing nothing all day. Walking, thinking, typing, whatever – it’s not just food and exercise we should think about. Food is like water – you would die without it. It doesn’t make any more sense to go and dehydrate yourself for a day or two and then drink an assload of water, then it does to starve and then eat a truck of food.
Define “eat better” — because Aajonus’s diet does not seem better to me. I mean, you didn’t even like it.
Weight is not the main focus. It’s how food works in you. And honestly, I’m in belief Matt must be doing something right to be muscular (not emaciated), never get sick, cure his past problems, etc. etc. Especially since a lot of people with similar diets have experienced the same thing (schwarzbein). And no, I don’t think it should be contributed towards genes either. There’s a fine line between genes and health, just as Price noted.
So though there may be a slight chance in every single theory pertaining to diet, I think it’s a good idea to look at who’s philosophy makes more sense to a said person. To me, it’s not eating butter and honey to put on fat because the world is polluted. If that were the case, wouldn’t we see more fat deers walkin around anyway? More lions with more pudge? Or is it just people in danger here.
Speaking of lions – to quote Matt here, lions in a zoo lay around all day and eat a totally different diet then the wild lions running around catching zebra – yet still remain muscular and outlive their wild budds. (10 years wild, 20 years captivity).
And not every single human tribe was/is moving all day or is squatting all day either. You can believe that, but have you met every indigenous culture out there to confirm that?
another thing, when you do those intense activities, like bruce says,”playful” type of activities your body wants nutrients more…and i don’t think it cares where it comes from, it will use any kind of food! and just think, if you eat better than the majority of people your body will be very happy. When people just set around, they use up no energy, there cells get bombarded with unused energy, and the cycle keeps going on till there fat asses.
I had a question for you also bruce. I know DeVany recommends not eating for at least and hour after a lifting session to keep GH up, what are your thoughts on that. I lift then i usually walk around on the beach, then drink some raw milk, cream, and raw egg yolks probably 30 minutes after the lifting session. I feel better than waiting an hour. From what i have read…maybe its not a good idea to keep GH up, because like ray peat says, it will increase cortisol levels, not a good thing.
I also like what Martin from leangains has to say about diet and working out. I have been following what he says and have seen amazing improvements in bodycomp and health….especially since increasing carbs and not being a carbaphope…and also thanks to you and matt i have quit obsessing about carb counting…. it really is a shame the low carb gurus won’t be more open minded. And they all do look way out of shape… I think devany and mark sisson could eat more unrefined starch or sugars if they kept there same outlook on training breifly and intensely and be as lean and ripped as they are.
troy
“first of all, force feeding is stress building.”
Tell that to Matt. His motto “hunger is your worst enemy” seems very similar to Aajonus’s motto “If you’re not vomiting, you’re eating.” Matt tells people stuff yourself like a competitive eater. That may be stress-building, but you can cut that stress by avoiding PUFAs and other foods that cause inflammation.
“the fact that it’s also high in sugars could affect their insulin as well (and perhaps if they were trying to purposefully fatten them, they may have skimmed the milk, like farmers who try to fatten livestock – but what tribes are you even talking about so that this can be more clear?)”
I don’t remember the name of that tribe. It was in Taubes’s book. You can find it in the references, probably. If not, you can contact Gary and ask him. Livestock are fed grains to fatten them. I doubt they could be fattened by skim milk with no other food. So I don’t know if sugars are fattening in the absence of starches and/or fats. I think you would have lots of trouble gaining weight on a skim milk diet, esp raw skim milk. The body gains weight on calories, not carbs. You could gain weight on a diet of raw muscle meat and organs, as Lex Rooker showed.
“You can mess up your hormones on any diet, and it doesn’t have to be standard and american only.”
Most people with these problems ate some combination of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, bleached / enriched flour, rancid whole grains, PUFA oils, trans fats, and so on. It’s definitely linked with diets heavily based on those foods, not fresh, unrefined, unbroken foods.
We don’t know why people had problems on Aajonus’s diet, or whether they followed it to the letter. Many would say they’re on the diet, while eating less meat than Aajonus says to eat, drinking more milk, eating less butter, etc. Of course you’d be deficient eating just raw butter and honey, but not when you’re also eating 1 to 3 pounds of meat, a dozen eggs, a few cups of raw milk, etc.
“The life expectancy of sumo wrestlers is much shorter than that of the spectators that watch them do battle. Most of them die of coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes in their 50s. During their final years they suffer from gout, high blood pressure and the complications of type 2 diabetes.”
Where is the source for this quote? They are probably retired. This is called the ex-jock syndrome. They stop exercise and continue eating the same diet. Of course they will have health problems. Plus the sumo eat refined food (white rice). Show us the people eating unrefined carbs for their whole life exclusively who develop diabetes, gout, and high blood pressure.
“Ok, but look at this guys suggestions. Wolfing down rotting meat?”
He only suggests high meat in tiny doses (like a golf ball size) and only for the treatment of some conditions.
“He’s trying to mimic a man in the wild by starving himself and then gorging on food.”
Wrong again. He says to eat each hour or hour and a half, not starve yourself. It is also possible like Matt said that his followers don’t eat enough and he has to exaggerate to get them to merely eat the right amount. Maybe he wants them to eat a pound of meat, so he tells them to eat 2-3 pounds of meat. People usually don’t follow any diet precisely.
“We live in a modern world – and he’s saying we are supposed to have excess fat but live on a primitive diet. I don’t see how this makes sense.”
He is saying that we need extra body fat to protect us from pollution, chemicals, and toxins all around us. Thin people do not have good emotional balance. Charles and Anthony Colpo are great examples for that. Bruce Lee died from cerebral edema probably caused by keeping his body fat at 2-3% perpetually. Having low body fat has been proven unhealthy, esp if you’re looking like a pre-contest body builder. Combine that low body fat with living in a polluted, crowded, stressful city, and see what happens. You will probably feel cold, hostile, angry, volatile, quick to anger, dissatisfied, perhaps violent.
“I don’t think [Matt]’s doing it out of gluttony but from what he believes…that’s definitely not obsessing over weight, but being aware of health.”
If he’s eating enough food for 2 people, that is gluttony. I don’t care if he is thin or fat. If he’s thin, it’s because the food was wasted in futile cycles or in his feces, as the pig study revealed. He will probably die a lot younger than someone eating like like Patricia Bragg or Jack LaLanne or Joel Fuhrman. He has an obsession with food, IMO. If food is fuel, then you shouldn’t have to “force feed” yourself like a competitive eater which is what Matt espouses. You should be able to eat once or twice a day, and NOT be hungry.
“Food is like water – you would die without it. It doesn’t make any more sense to go and dehydrate yourself for a day or two and then drink an assload of water, then it does to starve and then eat a truck of food.”
Nobody I mentioned suggests fasting and then pigging out on food, so you should read more carefully. AV and Matt suggest pigging out all the time. But since you bring up the idea of starving and eating a truckload of food, what’s wrong with that? I can name a lot of people who are lean and eat like that, starting with Art DeVany and Mark Sisson. Why is that bad, but stuffing yourself all the time with more food than you really need is OK by you? Which is gluttony?
Chloe: “Define “eat better” — because Aajonus’s diet does not seem better to me. I mean, you didn’t even like it.”
Not eating refined sugars, high fructose corn syrup, bleached white flour, rancid grains, PUFA oils, trans fats, chemicals and so on is “better” than SAD. I do not agree with AV on everything, but that is not proof that his diet is bad, if eaten exactly according to his rules. Most are not following his diet exactly, any more than low-carbers who eat frankenfoods or processed meats as staples are following the rules. (Atkins said you should stick mostly to unprocessed foods.)
“Weight is not the main focus. It’s how food works in you. And honestly, I’m in belief Matt must be doing something right to be muscular (not emaciated), never get sick, cure his past problems, etc. etc.”
I never get sick. What does that prove? Many people eating raw vegan diets don’t get sick. Many people eating SAD never get sick. That’s meaningless, just like saying he’s muscular and not emaciated. Prove that Matt’s diet’s better than AV or Art DeVany or Mark Sisson or someone else’s. Maybe he’s thin because most of the food is wasted, as I have suggested and as animal studies prove. Maybe that is also why he’s not sick as much. It’s calorie restriction whether you want to admit that or not. Whether Taubes wants to admit it or not, calories count, and low-carb diets don’t escape the laws of energy conservation.
“Especially since a lot of people with similar diets have experienced the same thing (schwarzbein). And no, I don’t think it should be contributed towards genes either. There’s a fine line between genes and health, just as Price noted.”
Schwarzbein ate a diet of grain covered with sugar and vegetable oil growing up. Many other diets do work for people who have eaten similar diets, as Cleave and McCarrison noted. Genes are what define Matt’s body type. If you think his diet is healthy because of how he looks, why don’t you eat like Tim Ferriss? He says he lost 20 pounds of fat in 30 days with no exercise. He also gained 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks doing only 60 minutes of exercise a week. Put some menopausal women on his diet and exercise regiman, and I bet they have a different result.
From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks
How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days? Without Doing Any Exercise
“He only suggests high meat in tiny doses (like a golf ball size) and only for the treatment of some conditions.”
Sorry, that should be MARBLE size, not a golf ball, which is much bigger. I was thinking of something else in his book, where he used golf-ball as a comparison.
Bruce,
I think one of things you might be missing is the nutrients in grains that are not easily acquired elsewhere. Grains are regarded as one of the best dietary sources of vitamin E and, to a lesser extent, magnesium. The same can be said for nuts. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the only two supplements Ray Peat seems to endorse are, you guessed it, vitamin E and magnesium.)
I am suggesting that including grains in a balanced diet with fat soluble vitamins may be a way to obtain the benefit of the grains (vitamin E, magnesium) without suffering the consequences (nutrient deficiency).
Thus, while grains alone might be disastrous, grains added to a balanced diet might be better than eating that balanced diet alone. This is not a difficult concept and one that is directly supported by McCarrison and at least arguably supported by Price.
Matt,
I think you missed the point of my post. I was pointing out that Bruce’s attack on the WAPF (not WAP himself) for criticizing sugar is not quite an accurate or fair, assessment since, as you note, the WAPF endorses such things as raw honey, molasses, rapadura, etc.
I never held out Dr. Cowan as the epitome of health, only offered him as further proof that Bruce’s criticism of WAPF was not accurate, so your attack on his appearance (and future health) was unnecessary. Not to mention, assuming your criticisms of him are right, it seems to me that his diet is not too distinct from what you advocate (and a shining example of what you used to unquestioningly advocate to your readers).
As was pointed out by you and Sen, Price’s comments re: the Africans fall short of jumping right out and saying that this diet is better than that one. But when Price notes that the group eating the balanced diet was physically better proportioned than the other two, I think the implication is clear and only stubborness could blind anyone to that fact.
(And Sen, your claim that Enig/Fallon’s spin is to support grain consumption is laughable. The WAPF literature is replete with anti-grain information. Indeed, for a time, my strict avoidance of all things grain and starch was due in large part because I thought this is what WAPF endorsed.)
But implication aside, I’m not sure you are correct, Matt, that Price did not get into the practice of advocating one dietary approach over another. Price’s correspondence to his family in which he set forth strict guidelines suggests that he definitely had a preference. Although there was a correlation between little or no carbohydrate consumption and caries in Price’s observations, he did not advocate a grain-free diet to his family. Quite the opposite, Price heavily emphasized the combination of grains and dairy. If he did not have a preference, he might have simply set forth concepts in broad strokes, rather than specific commands.
But, honestly, what the hell is the point of all of this back and forth between me, Sen, Bruce, and now you? I am simply suggesting that a balanced diet of unadulterated foods that is not too exclusive of either plant or animal products may be the “ideal,” to the extent that one exists. I think this is supported by McCarrison and Price’s work. What exactly do you guys disagree with?
Unfortunately, this blog seems to have devolved into a bit too much deconstruction of others’ ideas, and too little in the way of constructive, practical advice. As much as I’ve gotten on his case numerous times in the past, Bruce at least gives us an idea of what to do, rather than repeatedly emphasizing what not to do. Although it’s entertaining to be reminded just how ridiculous some people are about saturated fat and animal products, I hope that we can do something other than sling mud in their faces.
Chloe: “I think it’s a good idea to look at who’s philosophy makes more sense to a said person. To me, it’s not eating butter and honey to put on fat because the world is polluted. If that were the case, wouldn’t we see more fat deers walkin around anyway? More lions with more pudge? Or is it just people in danger here.”
This is a straw man argument, because a deer or lion can’t choose to gain weight by eating more. And yes, they’re harmed by pollution and so are we. You seem to be defending a low body fat, rather than thinking objectively about the world we live in. Also, the reason for eating the butter and honey is because you get more even fat distribution, not a fat belly, but a thin layer of fat all over. Where is the evidence that it’s healthy to be at 10% body fat or less while living in Los Angeles, New York City, Mexico City, or another polluted city? Using animals to argue something makes you look silly. Animals also eat 100% raw foods. Do you and Matt do that? Do you and Matt sleep outside nude on the ground?
“Speaking of lions – to quote Matt here, lions in a zoo lay around all day and eat a totally different diet then the wild lions running around catching zebra – yet still remain muscular and outlive their wild budds. (10 years wild, 20 years captivity).”
So what? Humans aren’t lions. Show me a human who is sedentary and has the body of a lion. Charles doesn’t fit the bill, because he runs and lifts weights. What would happen to his body if he just sat around all day? My guess is he would be pathetic and out of shape like Bear was before he started lifting weights.
The Bear – Essays – Diet and Exercise
“And not every single human tribe was/is moving all day or is squatting all day either. You can believe that, but have you met every indigenous culture out there to confirm that?”
Prove that they weren’t. I have seen all kinds of photos and video evidence that they DO squat for large parts of the day and are not sitting in chairs or on the ground. Any healthy child (or adult) can do the full squat effortlessly for hours of the day. Unhealthy people ignore that and try to rationalize sitting in chairs and being sedentary, unfit, un-flexible. If Matt’s as strong as Jack LaLanne when he’s 94 years old, I’ll change my views. Until then I will say that diet can only do so much, and you will not be in shape without exercise. I don’t care what you eat. You will still decline with age if you’re sedentary and don’t do any short intense intermittent exercise.
Golf ball was the size of meat for Aajonus’s virtually zero-carb bi-annual fat loss diet. And Aajonus’s recommendations give a person equally-distributed and healthy subcutaneous fat. That IS synonymous with health. A potbelly, or visceral fat is quite the opposite.
I don’t recommend eating all the time or force-feeding day after day after day for a lifetime. I bring that up because avoiding hunger perpetually for an extended period of time helps to lower cortisol and increase the metabolism, two of the key fundamental underlying disorders of those who are overweight. It’s a starter step. A kickstart, that helps people have regulated appetite and a higher metabolism when they return to eating normal amounts of food. I eat 3 meals a day. I eat, on average, no more than 3,000 calories.
I stress resting because it is counter to the concept of eating less and exercising more, which is a strategy that doesn’t work, and that all overweight people seeking to lose need to expel from their psyches if they hope to lose weight and achieve health simultaneously. I’ve gotten far more exercise and spent as much time as any human being outdoors in the last 12 years. Outdoor exercise, sunshine, etc. are healthy things, but I was dependent on them for health because of a poor diet. If I stopped I put on weight and started wheezing like crazy. Now I’m free. I can exercise or not. It doesn’t matter.
I give Cowan and the WAPF followers a hard time because I think a person should be impeccably healthy as the first prerequisite before administering health advice. Well, they can advise all they want, but I can’t imagine listening to what he or she has to say. Cowan looks unhealthy. He has a potbelly and little fat elsewhere. This reeks of low thyroid, high cortisol, high insulin. He dwells on eating alkaline foods and doing some new-agey exercise routine, taking supplements, and getting plenty of fat soluble vitamins. He then raids the dessert table (or at least he did when I had lunch at the same table as him at the WAPF conference – as did 99% of the people there).
Ben, I don’t think Ray Peat suggests any magnesium supplements. He says Vitamin E and salt are the two safest supplements. Of course he recommends dessicated gland extracts (thyroid) and hormones for many conditions (like progesterone). Anyway a low-PUFA diet reduces the need for Vit E and arguably Vit A, as well. You can get magnesium from animal foods like snails, mollusks, shellfish, etc. No need to eat grains or nuts, which probably cause net losses of nutrients due to PUFAs, fiber, and other anti-nutrients.
Also, I was referring to Matt’s quote of Price, not the WAPF position. I disagree with Price’s belief that maple syrup and honey can undo an otherwise good diet. I think that’s hyperbole and not justified by his observations. The patients he saw with cavities were eating refined grains and sugars in the absence of fat soluble vitamins and animal protein. The results speak for themselves. When people eat an almost all-refined-carb diet, esp adding “vegetable fats” to the mix, diseases of civilization soon follow. The falsehoods begin when you blame carbs in general or say that all refined carbs are equal. It is clear that white rice is less harmful to the teeth than white flour. Dry sugar is probably less damaging than sodas and doughnuts and cookies. Ice cream is most likely safer than Butterfinger bars. The reality is both simpler and more complex than Price or WAPF believe.
I don’t agree that molasses and Rapadura are necessarily healthy. Honey is a more natural food. Maple syrup or tree sap is a more natural food. Granulated sugar is probably worse than comb/unheated honey.
“As was pointed out by you and Sen, Price’s comments re: the Africans fall short of jumping right out and saying that this diet is better than that one. But when Price notes that the group eating the balanced diet was physically better proportioned than the other two, I think the implication is clear and only stubborness could blind anyone to that fact.”
I think this is a good point. The Masai were very tall and lanky. Tribes eating mixed diets were better proportioned by fat. And the Eskimos had health problems from their excess of omega-3, like poor blood clotting. They had nosebleeds that lasted for days and left then in a state of collapse, according to Samuel Hutton, who studied them from 1902-1913. He said this in his book, “Health Conditions and Disease Incidence Among the Eskimos of Labrador.” They had a tendency to suffer hemorrhage. “Young and old alike are subject to nose bleeding and these sometimes continue for as much as three days and reduce the patient to a condition of collapse.” I would say the Eskimo’s diet was imperfect.
I agree that the all-animal diet is most likely an inferior diet for most people, esp the zero-carb version of it espoused by Charles Washington where muscle meats are eaten almost exclusively. I wouldn’t suggest anyone copy the Eskimo’s diet in Los Angeles or Mexico City, either.
Ben,
Don’t get too down about the deconstruction of ideas here. We are keeping each other in line by challenging one another’s logic. Yes, it’s circular and tiring at times, and yes we all do agree for the most part, but the heated debates here serve a great purpose. I’m pleased with it at least.
And sorry for ripping on the WAPF gang yet again, but attending their conference was one of the most demoralizing things I’ve ever done. And yes, I used to preach many of the same things that they do. I was into them. Now I’m willing to think and accept a wider range of dietary and lifestyle strategies to achieve health other than “get as many fat soluble vitamins as possible,” and “eat tons of fermented foods.”
Many people can get far better results fasting, eating nothing but fruit for 2 weeks, eating low carb, going on a no-sugar candida cleanse, and other strategies that are designed more specifically to counter imbalances within the body. In fact, a virtually zero-nutrient rice diet can be more healing than cod liver oil, and cure cavities in a snap.
Matt: “get as many fat soluble vitamins as possible,” and “eat tons of fermented foods.”
That’s a perfect summary of everything I sww wrong with Sally Fallon and the WAPF members. Brilliantly stated. I think fat soluble vitamins are really not all that important. Charles Sanford Porter healed people with skim milk just as well as on whole milk, perhaps even better. He said the fat in cream had nothing to do with the cure. Bernarr Macfadden said exactly the same thing and he used raw skim milk and even non-fat dry milk with fruits to cure disease.
“The fat in cream has little or nothing to do with the cure of disease. Many of my best cases were cured on skim milk, even separator skim milk.” (Charles S. Porter)
http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/resources/Porter.pdf
“Average milk, with four per cent of butter fat, yields about 675 calories per quart, at 314 calories to the pound. Skim milk, while equally good as a tissue builder, quite as rich as is whole milk in vital mineral salts, and equally satisfactory as a healing diet, contains much less of calory value…”
“However, it must be remembered that the calory is, after all, only a unit of measurement – nothing that contributes to the nutritive value of the food it measures.” (Bernarr Macfadden)
So much for the idea that mega-doses of fat soluble vitamins will provide great health and a diet very low in them will cause rampant disease and degeneration.
I do believe hunger and almost vomitting are two different things
eating until you’re full is different then eating two pounds of raw meat every hour (sorry if that’s not correct – If it isn’t then call me over exaggerating)
He also told people to eat like a competitive eater on the FUMP diet. I don’t think that pertains to a more general diet.
Eating until full is most likely not stress building. Perhaps quite the opposite.
I haven’t read Taubes’s book yet but it’s sitting on my desk. On my list of things to read. But anyway, it’s still just one tribe. Some cultures practice abstinence for a year because (as some anthropologists believe) it is an adaptation of sorts. That doesn’t mean it’s healthy for everyone else or required. Skim milk was fed to pigs so they would feel more hungry, rather then be satiated with whole milk.
But the question is if these women were being fed milk only, or not. And I wouldn’t doubt it’s impossible to be fattened with skim milk only. Maybe not right away, but perhaps it would catch up with you. Not everything is witnessed in the moment. Most people who do count calories and are still healthy or moving are those with the truly genetic abilities. Either that or they’re seriously exercising their ass off their entire life. Or they’re eating and they’re still hungry. Depending on what you believe hunger is.
It’s not just calories or carbs. It doesn’t seem that simple. Calories are a man-made invention – how do you know they’re even correct measure-wise? Maybe people gained weight on a diet of raw muscle meat and organs because they weren’t balanced hormonally. Or that diet messed their levels up even more. Not simply the fact they ate more calories; though anything is possible, you should be healthy enough to burn off the rest (without strenuous exercise) if you really are balanced internally. Hell, you might do that everyday and not know it. I feel like it’s not so easy to just exact calories out like that.
It’s also nice of you to say Cowan may be healthy with a pot belly, since he’s not eating an American diet, but Matt will hit the dust early because of too much food.
You can mess up your diet more on only natural foods if you previously are messed up or imbalanced in some way. I don’t know if that can happen if you are raised on all natural foods – maybe not since there’s the example of Pima indians and the Kitava. But pertaining to healing, there are many holes all around people, that’s why it’s not incredibly easy to fix your problems just by eating natural food, counting calories, or lowering carbs strictly.
You could say the same for anyone following Graham’s 80/10/10 diet. He claims people don’t follow it correctly, and that’s why they fail. Maybe he’s right. Or maybe he just thinks he is right.
I don’t know, googled
Sumo wrestlers have to retire at some point. Wouldn’t they be able to remain healthy if their diets were really healthy?
I had thought that it was him when I was reading on your boards. Sorry, should have checked my sources. It’s that other dude with A and V in his name – Art DeVany. Simple mistake.
Why take the risk telling people to eat that much? So then the people will complain to them and then they can tell them to eat less or eat the way they actually recommend? I mean it’s possible, but I don’t know why you would do that. Or I guess I would just prefer honesty, so I would hope it wasn’t an extreme exaggeration.
I know he’s saying that about the extra body fat- but there’s a difference between 2% and 20% body fat. And the fact that animals aren’t walking around without excess fat is a little weird if the environment is so polluted. Wouldn’t we see it in animals as well, don’t you think? Maybe Lee wasn’t eating enough. If he followed the calorie motto his hormones could have screwed up; not enough fat to build his cells, even. Maybe too much exercise could have contributed, no matter if it was intervals or not. What did that guy eat anyway? I don’t know much about him.
Maybe the 2 people Matt’s eating for aren’t eating enough (haha). You can’t call it gluttonous if you don’t know if that much food is truly damaging, or a whole new way to live. How do you know he’s not just at his optimal weight? I mean he looks nothing like Anthony Colpo – there’s got to be some significance in that. One calorie restricts – one eats healthy food till their full. I don’t see how it’s the same thing – especially since they’re both extremely different. Have you ever seen a person who calorie restricts that’s male? They look like they’re going to die. One can rebuild efficiently, muscles, cells, hormones; one is obviously deprived of some kind of muscle, and maybe hormones if you consider mood.
Again, I didn’t check that out. soorray. I was referring to DeVany.
Their is a big difference in these pigging outs. One = fullness, the other = almost vomiting
I also thought lean didn’t matter with you. They may be lean, but starving then gorging like that seems unnecessary in the modern day world as I had explained my views. Just insert DeVany’s name where Aajonus’s is on the dehydration/starving topic and there’s my point of view on that. Just like our pets and zoo animals don’t get fed their patterns that would otherwise be random in the wild.
How do you know we don’t need that much food or that it’s even harmful? Who have you witnessed eating this way who’s died prematurely? I find it unique. I’ve met a ton of people who attempt to follow the calorie rule with zero success; and people in Schwarzbein principle who seem like they go through amazing transformations with their stories. It’s awesome. And it does seem like a complete lifestyle effect. Yes these people have been damaged – but you’d be surprised at how common the things they did are in people in this world.
What’s wrong with eating polyunsaturated fats and fiber with you? I’m sure you could find a ripped person eating that way. Anyone can be ripped if they follow calorie rules. Doesn’t make it healthy.
It’s not just by looks. Sure it could be just as off or just as on track as any other diet…but this just makes sense to me after reading so many damn things about the logic behind it. Not just _ I eat calories, I burn them off, I don’t eat fat, and I eat protein shakes. yay_ Know what I’m saying? I could totally follow what Tim Ferris or Tom Venuto say and get a good look. That doesn’t mean their philosophy makes sense to me. And look isn’t all I’m after.
haha we sure are good at expanding these comments to a cagilion in a weeks time
It still doesn’t make sense why a layer of fat might protect us from pollution. Please elaborate more if you want it to sound convincing; other then that it just seems like something someone just pulled out of their head.
Matt: “Aajonus’s recommendations give a person equally-distributed and healthy subcutaneous fat. That IS synonymous with health. A potbelly, or visceral fat is quite the opposite.”
You mean they are ASSOCIATED with health problems in countries eating the typical Western Diet or SAD. I’m saying that you can’t extrapolate that risk to everybody in the world eating a different diet. It may not be unhealthy if you changed some of the variables in the diet.
“I think a person should be impeccably healthy as the first prerequisite before administering health advice.”
This sounds like more hyperbole, because how can you PROVE that you’re impeccably healthy? Bingeing on fruits or sweets is not a sign of health IMO. It’s a sign of insulin resistance and other problems, I think. Are you as healthy as Tim Ferriss or Art DeVany or Mark Sisson? Are you as healthy as me who can eat one tablespoon of raw honey and 2 oz of brie and not be craving sugar like a madman? I don’t see that. Bingeing and craving foods are the sign of a damaged metabolism.
“Well, they can advise all they want, but I can’t imagine listening to what he or she has to say.”
“He dwells on eating alkaline foods and doing some new-agey exercise routine, taking supplements, and getting plenty of fat soluble vitamins. He then raids the dessert table (or at least he did when I had lunch at the same table as him at the WAPF conference – as did 99% of the people there).”
Because they’re not eating enough fat or calories, obviously. I talked to someone eating the WAPF way who said they craved alcohol and sugar. I have never known an alcohol craving or a sugar craving. That is the first sign of poor helath IMO, to crave anything. If you can’t give up any food, you’re addicted to it. If you can change your diet at any time without any cravings, then you’re healthy. Sally and company are addicted to the “fat soluble vitamins” and fermented foods, as you so aptly stated. They think those foods are eessential, but the truth is we can have very little of them and be healthy, free of tooth decay, thin, etc.
Bruce:
Regarding Ray Peat and magnesium:
“I think the basic anti-aging diet is also the best diet for prevention and treatment of diabetes, scleroderma, and the various “connective tissue diseases.” This would emphasize high protein, low unsaturated fats, low iron, and high antioxidant consumption, with a moderate or low starch consumption. In practice, this means that a major part of the diet should be milk, cheese, eggs, shellfish, fruits and coconut oil, with vitamin E and salt as the safest supplements. It should be remembered that amino acids, especially in eggs, stimulate insulin secretion, and that this can cause hypoglycemia, which in turn causes cortisol secretion. Eating fruit (or other carbohydrate), coconut oil, and salt at the same meal will decrease this effect of the protein. Magnesium carbonate and epsom salts can also be useful and safe supplements, except when the synthetic material causes an allergic bowel reaction.”
Fellas, I think we agree much more than we disagree, obviously. I am no apologist for the WAPF. I think some of their ideas have merit, but are taken too far. And that is sort of the gist of my recent posts: it strikes me as a bit silly to criticize one group for their extreme views if we are equally extreme ourselves.
I have been just as guilty about this as anyone. I think the human temptation is to search out and cling to brightlines. This is probably the result of an urge to simply things. Fat is the devil so avoid that; carbs are the devil so avoid those; animal foods are the devil so avoid them; plants are evil so stay away; and so on.
This is why I get on Bruce when he criticizes those who criticize sugar, then turns around and makes the sweeping statement that all starch is bad. I just seem extremism matched by extremism, and I think this is because we all too often want to reduce things to an either/or proposition. Admittedly, I am probably somewhat oversensitive to extremism because it is such thinking that, in my opinion, got me into digestive hell.
Take PUFAs, for example. I agree that we ought to avoid vegetable oils at all costs, but the idea that we must avoid every single shred in even the tiniest amounts is, to me, too extreme.
I also am leery of the idea that personal experience/appearance are good indicators of a successful dietary regime. As was noted elsewhere in a prior thread, Ricky Williams eats essentially nothing but nuts and fruit. He is very lean, very muscular, and obviously quite gifted athletically. But it would be a mistake, I think, to assume that such a diet is ideal or will make you look like Ricky on the basis of his appearance. Tyson Gay, currently the fastest American sprinter, is well known for consuming McDonalds on a regular basis. I personally know many people who eat fast food, refined flour, etc. who look fantastic and seem to feel good too. I think we all know people like this.
Thus, from these examples, we know that eating a bad diet does not necessarily manifest itself in poor physical appearance or performance. If you accept that, and you must, why should you expect a perfect diet to manifest itself as perfect appearance/health?
I am not saying Cowan is or is not on the ideal diet, I’m just saying that judging on the basis of appearance is not the most accurate way to proceed. In my opinion, some people’s genetics are such that they can’t screw themselves up no matter how hard they try. By the same token, I think there are perhaps people who’s genetics are so poor, that they can’t right themselves no matter how hard they try. Whether this represents the exception or the rule, I cannot say, but I do believe it exists.
That said, I do believe that their are some immutable principles that are not subject to dispute. I think it would be impossible to deny that high PUFA consumption is not beneficial. I think minimizing fiber is a good things, though this is not as clear cut as the PUFA issue. Things become less clear, IMO, when you start talking about macronutrient ratios, etc.
In any event, I can testify that (1) digestive health is the most important thing, and (2) once it’s broken, it is very difficult to repair.
As a side note, Bruce, any idea what it might mean if coconut oil seems to cause nausea and diarrhea? I never seemed to have trouble with the Garden of Life brand, but do not feel well on the Jungle Products brand.
Ben: “Take PUFAs, for example. I agree that we ought to avoid vegetable oils at all costs, but the idea that we must avoid every single shred in even the tiniest amounts is, to me, too extreme.”
The fact is that our needs are so small, we’re more likely to exceed them than to fall short of them. And that can cause a lot of other problems. I never said that we should avoid minute traces, but (like Ray Peat) I think it is better to focus on foods with less PUFAs (cod instead of salmon, scallops instead of sardines, or lobster instead of tuna). I think white peeled potatoes and organic white sushi rice are safer than whole grains and/or beans due to less PUFA and fiber.
Nuts and seeds are usually high in PUFAs and undesirable, esp if they’re not very fresh (preferably shelled by hand with a nut cracker). I stay away from nuts, but use coconut and macadamia oil. Those are very low in PUFAs. Hazelnuts are next at like 9-10% PUFAs. I would avoid or limit other nuts severely, along with the oils made from them (esp peanut and canola).
“I also am leery of the idea that personal experience/appearance are good indicators of a successful dietary regime. As was noted elsewhere in a prior thread, Ricky Williams eats essentially nothing but nuts and fruit. He is very lean, very muscular, and obviously quite gifted athletically.”
We definitely agree here. Go look at any lean Hollywood star, like Jason Statham. Read about their diet and I bet you it’s ultra-low-fat, high-protein, moderate in carbs, and low calories (2,000 or less). Plus, they are doing hard exercise (like sprinting and weight lifting) on several days a week. You do not get that type of physique by eating like Matt and sitting on the couch. Look at Statham’s body in Death Race and try to build that body on ANY diet without exercise.
Jason Statham wallpaper
“In my opinion, some people’s genetics are such that they can’t screw themselves up no matter how hard they try. By the same token, I think there are perhaps people who’s genetics are so poor, that they can’t right themselves no matter how hard they try.”
Genetics are clearly a factor. Some guys have washboard stomachs while eating all kinds of crap. Others have to eat hardly anything and exercise hard to maintain a similar body fat level. To conclude from other successful people what’s a healthy dietwould be fraught with peril. Most of the lean and muscular people you see are eating low-fat, high-protein, moderate carbs, and low calories, plus doing hard exercise (Cross-Fit, P90x, kettle bells, plyometrics, interval training).
“As a side note, Bruce, any idea what it might mean if coconut oil seems to cause nausea and diarrhea? I never seemed to have trouble with the Garden of Life brand, but do not feel well on the Jungle Products brand.”
Ray Peat recommends the 76 degree melt, naturally refined coconut oil for most people. You can get it for around $1 a pound from soap making companies. With the virgin oils, the best are the ones sold by Wilderness Family IMO – either the centrifuged or the fermented kind. There are toxins and impurities in the virgin oils frequently. The Wilderness brands are probably best, but they may contain salicylates, which are removed from the naturally refined oils. Maybe it’s a “detox” reaction, too.
Matt: “I’ve gotten far more exercise and spent as much time as any human being outdoors in the last 12 years. Outdoor exercise, sunshine, etc. are healthy things, but I was dependent on them for health because of a poor diet. If I stopped I put on weight and started wheezing like crazy. Now I’m free. I can exercise or not. It doesn’t matter.”
I don’t put on weight or wheeze if I get no outdor exercise or sunshine, but that does not mean it’s healthy to be a couch potato vampire shut-in. I believe you’re just trying to be sensational, by saying it doesn’t matter. If it doesn’t matter, stay indoors forever, and only go out at night or wearing sunglasses, hoods, long sleeves, long pants, shoes, gloves, etc. See how well you fare. You’re saying you don’t need sunlight and exercise to stay in good health as a 30 year old man? You might want to wait until 60 ot 80 before making claims like that. If you believe it, why did you feel toxic and have body odor when you sat around in a chair all day? Was it simply because you eating no carbs? If so, I would like a good theory as to why carbs would do that.
Exercise can be a way to self-medicate for someone with burned out adrenals. It feels good in the short term but is not sustainable. I used to have to exercise intensely to feel OK. If I went a day or two without intense exercise I felt pretty bad. I have quite a few clients that feel that way as well. Now I don’t need exercise like I used to. I can go for a week without any intense exercise and feel fine. I think Matt may be talking about the same kind of experience. I recall reading a study where they found about twenty people who were very avid exercisers. They weren’t allowed to exercise for a few weeks. After that time many of the people were developing signs of HPA axis disturbance and signs of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. The interpretation was that they were using intense exercise as a way to medicate some hormonal imbalances.
Here's the study with the intense exercisers by the way:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15518675?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
I think you’re right on the money, Bruce. The people that DeVaney gets ultra lean also seem to follow a similar plan of relatively low calories (~2,000 kcal/day), high protein, higher carbs (from fruit), and lower fat. IIRC, DeVaney separates out yolks from his eggs and does other things to deliberately avoid fat. IMO, though, DeVaney probably is too influenced by Cordain and therefore takes in too many PUFAs.
There is one other factor affecting people like Statham: Chemical enhancement. I know a gentleman who operates a supplement company in Oregon, which sells hormonal products. They are all legal, of course, but probably beyond what casual individuals would use. I believe a large segment of his clientele is made up not of athletes or bodybuilders, but actors. I just heard a radio interview with Mickey Rourke the other day in which he freely acknowledged that he used these things to prepare himself for The Wrestler.
That is a significant component, along with plastic surgery and the like, which gives Hollywood people the edge. I’m sure it applies with equal force to athletes who follow a bad diet. But I was mostly referring to the casual co-worker or whatnot who eats like crap yet looks fantastic.
I also agree, Bruce, that exercise is a huge factor. I think that exercise beyond things like walking, gardening, repair work, etc. is not necessary to make/keep you “healthy,” but I agree that you are never going to build that kind of muscle without exercise. The same is true for strength, which very much depends on stimulation of the central nervous system.
The detox aspect of the coconut oil is something I considered. I felt sort of feverish, had unbelievable diarrhea, and felt ill. My belches tasted of coconut oil. There is no doubt, though, that it was either the coconut oil doing something negative on its own or provoking some kind of a detox reaction. How would you proceed, Bruce?
todd, i totally agree with that; i had a hard time coming off extreme exercise too and had a lot of symptoms Schwarzbein described. I totally understand what she was explaining as “breaking down” your body and “using up biochemicals” when doing that
as for the vampire couch thing, that’s a bit over exaggerated and harsh if you ask me; it’s also assuming a lot – as you can get outside for one or two hours a day and walk around and not have to be squatting or sprinting in order to be healthy. You can get too much sun too. No one here is sitting in the dark on a couch, avoiding all sunlight and eating all day non stop, I don’t think. That wouldn’t make anyone happy, and anyone doing that is probably depressed anyway.
also, no one assumed you would look like Bruce Lee or Jason Statham on this specific eating regimen
Actually, Matt said he looked like Bruce Lee after the wind river diet. And that’s not something highly suggested.
Could any one look like that on a natural diet? I don’t know, probably. But it’s not required by any means. If there’s no harm in exercising, and you feel like doing it, then do it, but no one should have to force themselves to be active if they don’t have the enthusiasm or energy levels they should or if they aren’t rebuilding efficiently or aren’t resting enough. Actors will probably do anything to get into shape, including restrictive diets and intense exercise. Maybe they find other ways, such as things they may find healthy – like Woody Harrelson and raw food. Even then it could be questionable. They are under a lot of pressure.
what happened to maybe fat is healthy, then? ah you are confusing
Chloe: “It still doesn’t make sense why a layer of fat might protect us from pollution. Please elaborate more if you want it to sound convincing; other then that it just seems like something someone just pulled out of their head.”
Toxins are fat soluble. Aajonus feels if you don’t have enough body fat they will go straight into organs, causing massive damage. He tells people to gain and lose weight twice a year, and not be obsessed with thinness even during weight loss. I think because his diet uses high-fat and high-carb, people will have more fat and yet it may be distributed totally evenly so they look much smaller than people at the same body fat eating conventionally.
That’s the theory. I don’t agree totally with his advice. I think that losing and gaining weight repeatedly is damaging to the metabolism, because that’s the cycle that many obese people follow for a life time as Matt has pointed out. Repeatedly losing and gaining the same weight.
“I do believe hunger and almost vomitting are two different things”
That is just hyperbole from AV, I think. He does tell people to eat frequently to gain weight, and then lose weight yearly or twice a year. The reason he claims is to clean out all the toxins in your body fat. He calls it an oil-change, and says that detox symptoms are reduced when you follow this procedure.
“Eating until full is most likely not stress building. Perhaps quite the opposite.”
But, why eat until full? Why not eat to 80% full like the Okinawans? Being full is uncomfortable. Why should you assume it is healthy to eat until you’re full? That may just stretch out your stomach, so you get used to over-eating, instead of healing your metabolism.
“I haven’t read Taubes’s book yet but it’s sitting on my desk. On my list of things to read.”
You can find the quote by Taubes easily. Just look in the index for milk. I think it’s in the chapter on “fattening diets” at the beginning of the chapter. I don’t have the book, I got it from the library when it first came out, though.
“Skim milk was fed to pigs so they would feel more hungry, rather then be satiated with whole milk.”
To increase their hunger for other food! If you just ate skim milk, i don’t think you could eat enough to gain weight. Try doing it, with NO other food. Maybe some unheated honey and orange juice, but NO fat whatsoever. First of all, I think it would speed up your metabolism, because of the lack of PUFAs. A low-PUFA diet is impossible to gain weight on, as lots of studies show. Try feeding animals sugar by itself (dry) and they lose weigt. Add PUFA oils and they will gain weight. Add coconut oil and they lose weight. PUFAs are a factor in weight. Probably that is a reason I lost weight eating the Primal Diet. I was eating like a cup of honey a day and 4 tablespoons of coconut oil and 8-16 cups of milk, beef, cheese, livers, hardly any PUFAs. Combined with the fact I was doing interval training and weight lifting a few times a week, my metabolic rate kicked into over-drive.
“But the question is if these women were being fed milk only, or not. And I wouldn’t doubt it’s impossible to be fattened with skim milk only. Maybe not right away, but perhaps it would catch up with you.”
True. They might have been feeding them other food. But I think it would not be easy to get fat on a low-PUFA no-starch diet. When PUFAs and starches are added to the equation, things change. I burned through fat like crazy on the PD, while eating 8-16 cups of milk, several ounces of cheese, a pound of beef or lamb, cup of honey, 4 tablespoons of coconut oil, 4 eggs, and a little fruit.
“It’s also nice of you to say Cowan may be healthy with a pot belly, since he’s not eating an American diet, but Matt will hit the dust early because of too much food.”
I’m just trying to include both sides of the argument. Just because Matt thinks a person looks unhealthy doesn’t mean they really are unhealthy, or that their diet is to blame. Maybe Tom has higher stress than Matt, a 30-year-old single man has. You can’t judge a person by their looks, like Ben said. I disagree with the WAPF, their emphasis on fish oil and fermented foods, in particular. But maybe Cowan is healthier than Matt. Maybe Cowan has bad genes or heritage or whatever you choose to call it, and this is the best he will look on any diet. Without walking in his shoes, I don’t think Matt should presume to understand his health.
Not challenging, just asking: What is the problem with fermented foods? Is it the lactic acid?
Reason I ask is because every single time I eat yogurt or a fermented food, my nose plugs up and my ears feel “foggy” instantaneously. It is like an instant reaction; I don’t get this with regular milk, just fermented. I wonder if this has something to do with the lactic acid.
“This sounds like more hyperbole, because how can you PROVE that you’re impeccably healthy?”
B
yes, furthermore, what actually is “health”? Of course one can say it is the absence of illness, but equally one can argue that illness, disease or ailments are simply the body seamlessly attempting to heal/repair/protect itself. Even in the most robust individual these “healing” process are taking place, although the symptoms may be barely noticeable.
Now granted, this “healing” does not always occur, but nevertheless, defining “health” as distinct from “non-health” is not so easy.
Kind wishes, J
Chloe: "And the fact that animals aren't walking around without excess fat is a little weird if the environment is so polluted. Wouldn't we see it in animals as well, don't you think?"
Aajonus is not saying that being exposed to toxins makes you gain weight – though it is definitely one factor. He's saying you should have more body fat to protect yourself from all the toxins, radiation, pollution, stress, etc. But it should be evenly distributed, ideally. When eating like that, you can have 20-25% body fat, and look as thin as somebody with 10-15% body fat, eating normally.
"Maybe Lee wasn't eating enough. If he followed the calorie motto his hormones could have screwed up; not enough fat to build his cells, even. Maybe too much exercise could have contributed, no matter if it was intervals or not. What did that guy eat anyway? I don't know much about him."
He probably ate the low-everything diet: low-fat, fairly low-carbs, low-protein, and low calories. He did a lot of brutal exercise. He trained like Pavel – doing push-ups or lifting barbells while he's reading a book, doing pull-ups while he watched TV, etc. He trained high volume, high intensity, short duration, and not to failure. Same as Pavel Tsatsouline's philosophy. Strength is a skill and you don't have to be big to be strong.
"Maybe the 2 people Matt's eating for aren't eating enough (haha). You can't call it gluttonous if you don't know if that much food is truly damaging, or a whole new way to live. How do you know he's not just at his optimal weight? I mean he looks nothing like Anthony Colpo – there's got to be some significance in that. One calorie restricts – one eats healthy food till their full. I don't see how it's the same thing – especially since they're both extremely different.
Anthony Colpo eats meat and salad diet. so he's eating almost the same as Matt. He does eat maltodextrin after exercise to load glycogen, but he is following a very-low-carb diet overall. He does not count calories or restrict himself, he's just saying that calories count and you won't have the body of an athlete while eating like Michael Eades and laying on the couch all day. There are many other ways to heal besides what Matt is doing, and he full recognizes that. Which is a rare thing in the low-carb worldl. Matt would never be invited to dinner by the Eades, because he's a heretic. I do not think Charles would invite him over for dinner either, because Matt has an open mind and he's not a zealot.
"Have you ever seen a person who calorie restricts that's male? They look like they're going to die. One can rebuild efficiently, muscles, cells, hormones; one is obviously deprived of some kind of muscle, and maybe hormones if you consider mood."
Jason Statham calorie-restricts and his body looks a lot better than Matt's or anybody eating low-carb that I know of. He does hard exercise like Art DeVany & Mark Sisson and eats 2,000 Calories per day. No white flour, no sugar, no white rice, no fried foods, etc. If you want some more examples, just look into what male models eat, like the guys on Men's Health. They eat the same as Statham or DeVany or Sisson, probably. No refined carbs, no junk fats, no beer.
Ben: “Not challenging, just asking: What is the problem with fermented foods? Is it the lactic acid?”
I know that Ray Peat talks against them. He has consulted with people who ate the SFF (previously known as WAPF) diet, and they had many problems with the foods SF promotes, like fermented vegetables, and long-cooked broths, and raw dairy. I get muscle stiffness or bloating from eating things like yogurt and kefir. I find it is better to eat fresh milk, cheese, or butter. And soft cheese (like mozzarella and ricotta) maybe better than hard ones (like cheddar and colby). Ray Peat feels the lactic acid is bad. He thinks cheese is OK, but not veggies, because they are less nutritions to begin with.
What’s wrong with a long cooked broth? I thought Peat liked bone broths.
“What’s wrong with a long cooked broth? I thought Peat liked bone broths.”
He says not to cook it more than 3 hours or it degrades the nutrients. I wouldn’t cook the meat too long, either. Just cut the meat while it’s rare or medium. That would probably be more nutritious.
3 hrs? Not much there after only 3 hours.
“What’s wrong with eating polyunsaturated fats and fiber with you? I’m sure you could find a ripped person eating that way. Anyone can be ripped if they follow calorie rules. Doesn’t make it healthy.”
Sure, you can find ripped people eating that way. I found this bodybuilder Kerry Napier who eats flaxseed oil as his main fat. The rest of his diet is low-fat and he also eats low-protein. His website is no longer working, but he looked as lean as Bruce Lee, with almost 50 pounds more muscle mass. He is incredibly ripped and defined. Here’s a picture.
Kerry Napier – Bruce Lee with more muscle
The problem with PUFAs is several-fold. They’re unstable, they promote excessive inflammation and prolonged bleeding and immune suppression and reduced metabolic rate, among other things. Fiber is just waste. Matt suggested that eating fiber with too much fat or meat caused him to have huge bowel movements. That woudl be one reason to minimize it, esp if you’re eating a high-fat diet, IMO.
What about the fiber in fruit? I’ve seen it stated in numerous places that although grain/nut fiber is problematic, fruit fiber is less so. You might have even expressed similar sentiments, Bruce, but I can’t remember for sure. Lita Lee did.
It would make some sense, though. I know that primates consume quite a bit of fruit and I can’t imagine that their digestive tracts are much different than ours. Unless they are peeling it . . .
Chloe, I don’t believe in doing “extreme exercise.” Listen to Mark Sisson. In one of his YouTube videos he said he sprints on the beach one day a week. It does not take much high intensity exercise to get benefits. I prefer active sitting to the normal chairs. If I had the money, these are the only seats I would use: Swopper, Muvman, or Sitness 20. I hate sitting on chairs that don’t move. They are boring, stifling, and debilitating.
I don’t exercise to feel better. I don’t exercise for a high. I exercise so I can be stronger, more efficient, more agile, more balanced, faster, etc. I don’t buy Schwarzbein’s claim that exercise breaks the body down and “uses up biochemicals” faster than they can be renewed. That is oonly true for people eating Dean Ornish or SAD type diets, IMO.
I don’t think we can get “too much sun.” I can walk in the summer sun for hours a day and not sunburn, because of my diet. Someone who eats a lot of PUFAs might be more vulnerable, esp omega-3 fats. I eat hardly any PUFAs (6-8g maybe). I can not burn, no matter how hard I try. I walked for hours in the summer sun to prove it. Several other people have shared with me the same experience. There may be people who are not so lucky, due to their prior diet (being bottle fed and eating crap), but a healthy person can be in the sun a long time without burning or peeling. My skin does not burn any more.
Yeah, somehow that doesn’t make sense to me, because you can store more fat around your organs without storing it around your body. More fat around your cells and insides – but I feel like the only purpose of body fat is for people like eskimos who are trying to be protected from the cold. I think they were probably more robust, short and lanky then most other people because of that.
I agree about losing and gaining and the metabolism
That’s nice of him, but if he were honest (probably about more then one thing) he wouldn’t write like that for all of what he said to try to manipulate people to eat a lot. Maybe he really does mean eat until you don’t want to look at food anymore. I mean, these guys usually put in some pretty sturdy directions if they want people to follow them. Telling them to follow it “exactly” or they will not get results. So that one’s questionable.
And just because Okinawans do it doesn’t mean it may be healthy. They eat pork and fry things in lard, which you wouldn’t do long term perhaps.
I only feel uncomfortable if I haven’t eaten as much as I could.
I know they fed it to pigs so they would eat other things; that’s why I brought up if the woman were fed anything else but with skim milk so they wouldn’t stop eating.
How do you explain people loosing weight on Schwarzbein and Kwasniewski’s program if they are eating polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats? In fact she puts overweight people on this type of diet in the beginning so they -won’t- gain weight because supposedly saturated fats compete with sugars. She could be wrong about that, but I guess she got results or she wouldn’t have included it. Maybe Kwasniewski’s program is just high in fat and too low in protein so people are breaking down anyway, but still, it’s not because of the polyunsaturated fats if they’re loosing weight. It is low in fiber. But he’s all about pork.
If someone looks unhealthy it’s a pretty safe bet they aren’t. Just like having dark circles under your eyes probably isn’t natural and people take notice of that. Why would he have stress if he cared about his health? I mean it’s a possibility but we won’t know unless he were to tell us if he were stressed or what he ate. He probably enjoys what he does; I don’t know if it’s as stressful as a single mom with two jobs or not, but your guess is as good as mine.
So again, bringing up Lee and Statham isn’t smart if they aren’t doing anything different then anyone else. Yes, he can “restrict” calories to 2000. That’s totally different from someone who follows calorie restriction which is more like 1200-1600 or less depending on size. These people do not look like Jason Statham. He looks big because he works out, obviously. Graham does the same thing but no ones going to get ripped eating fruit and doing nothing. They might find it easier because all they’ve got is skin left to cover up muscle. But that’s another example of the calorie law. But calorie restriction is way different from the calorie laws.
Meat and salad? Ok, his blog title is “Small bites” and he cares about calories. There has to be a big difference somewhere. Sure there are many approaches to diet. And this one is way ahead of most others that I’ve read just because of all the work put behind it and all the information that comes with it. The research and results included. It’s nothing like believing in a raw diet or calorie restriction, just in my opinion. I never had a good feeling about the raw diet even when I was on it and I was always reading conflicting evidence because people always sounded ridiculous and like they were following some higher being rather then eating. To read about this is just amazing. I feel one hundred times more certain of my success eating similar to this way because I’m not just following one person’s opinion, but an abundance of knowledge from many people who’ve written different books and a person to research it all.
Who’s to say polyunsaturated fats do that in general or just with the wrong things? Just like sugar, and just like any food. Same with fiber. Eating it with nothing but plants is different from eating it in excess with high fat. Too much of it might do that, but you might not have to avoid it like a plague.
Dr. Bass did a study when he would get monkeys from a lab and try to get them healthy again and he would feed them figs and the little monkeys would rip off the outer part and just eat the inside flesh. So maybe it has to do with healing.
It’s not just true for people on those diets; but the fact is how they’re exercising. They’re trying to intentionally burn off whatever they ate in fear. It’s the same as not eating enough and your metabolism trying to make up for that by slowing down so you won’t die and waste away.
You could say the same thing for someone trying to live where the eskimos do. They would have to follow a certain diet in order to survive. The same could be for the sun. Anyone can burn easily, and it probably is from diet, but still, there’s no “correct” way to eat, unless you think just because you don’t burn means it’s correct. If you say looks and not being sick doesn’t matter then why does not sunburning matter?
Bruce: “How do you explain people loosing weight on Schwarzbein and Kwasniewski’s program if they are eating polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats?”
MUFAs are OK if they’re more than PUFAs, I think. People lose by not eating boxed cereal, candy bars, doughnuts, cookies, fast food, fried food, etc. Many people don’t get results on her diet probably. They gain weight and never lose it. You can’t determine by the results of a 30 year old healthy man that her diet will work for obese menopausal women, single mothers under high stress, married men in their 50s, etc. That’s another thing entirely. Look at Tim Ferriss. He says he gained 34 lbs of muscle and lost 3 lbs of fat in 28 days. And he has proof to back it up – before and after pics, and hydro-statis (underwater) weighing. His diet is the opposite of Matt’s and Schwarzbein’s, low-fat, high-carb, and high-protein.
“In fact she puts overweight people on this type of diet in the beginning so they -won’t- gain weight because supposedly saturated fats compete with sugars. She could be wrong about that, but I guess she got results or she wouldn’t have included it.”
How many obese people has she cured? Any diet guru can write a book and say they healed people or helped them lose weight fast, but where is the randomized double blind controlled study to show that her way is anything special?
“Maybe Kwasniewski’s program is just high in fat and too low in protein so people are breaking down anyway, but still, it’s not because of the polyunsaturated fats if they’re loosing weight. It is low in fiber. But he’s all about pork.”
In the absence of carbs, PUFAs are more ketogenic than other fats. I have noted this before. Dr. Herman Taller (author of “Calories Don’t Count”) told people to eat 5 oz of corn oil, safflower oil, and margarine a day (1260 Calories). As long as the people ate near zero-carb, they lost weight fast. The rest of his diet consisted of meat, eggs, butter, cheese, fish, and nuts. The question is whether those people improved health or lost weight at the expense of health. I never said you can’t lose weight eating high PUFAs, but to do it you would have to count calories or give up all carbs. Few people will stick to that.
“Meat and salad? Ok, his blog title is “Small bites” and he cares about calories.”
What are you talking about? Andy Bellati runs the Small Bites blog. I was talking about Anthony Colpo. He eats a low-carb, paleo diet consisting of mainly meat and vegetables from what I’ve heard. He also eats carbs around his work-outs, but the rest of the time virtually none.
“What about the fiber in fruit? I’ve seen it stated in numerous places that although grain/nut fiber is problematic, fruit fiber is less so.”
If you remove the peels and seeds, fruit maybe OK. Fruits with unavoidable seeds, like berries and figs, maybe problematic for some people, esp if they’re eating a lot of fat. I think Sen mentioned – here or on another list – that primates often spit out the fiber and pulp. Aajonus has said things like that too. Only ruminant animals can break down fiber. I’ve tried eating fiber with less fat, based on one of Matt’s observations, and I noticed my bowel movements were smaller. Like I eat just raisins or grapes for a meal. There is definitely a difference between fiber eaten by itself and mixing together with lots of fat, protein, etc.
“It would make some sense, though. I know that primates consume quite a bit of fruit and I can’t imagine that their digestive tracts are much different than ours. Unless they are peeling it…”
They probably spit out some of the fiber if they did eat them whole. The peels on some fruits are easy to remove, or don’t taste good, or are tough. Like banana or citrus peels, I can’t see most people or animals eating them by choice.
Ben: “IIRC, DeVaney separates out yolks from his eggs and does other things to deliberately avoid fat. IMO, though, DeVaney probably is too influenced by Cordain and therefore takes in too many PUFAs.”
He eats whole eggs, based on photos that he put up of his meals. He does eat lean meats, though. His big thing is variety. One day he eats pork, the next day beef, then lobster, eggs, cheese, turkey, etc. He eats different fruits and veggies, by season. He eats a lot of PUFAs, and less saturated fat than most primitives, IMO. Lots of olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, etc. And changing your meals around that frequently might not be a good idea. The body adapts to diet like exercise. Using the same meals over and over again makes the body more efficient. Tim Ferriss has a point there, I think. Most athletes or body-builders eat the same half dozen or so meals over and over. Consistency with diet and training is 90% of the game for athletes, body-builders, etc. Most diets work by limiting variety, and there’s no special advantage with low-carb. You can lose weight on 3,000 Calories of fruit a day just as easily as zero-carb. Obesity is caused by high-everything, esp a high refined-carb and junk-fat diet.
god damnit I did it again; I’m really not painting a good image for myself here
OK so Anthony Colpo. Matt and him are different in exercise regimens. Their diets and philosophies are also not the same as Colpo so clearly states here,
“It is the widely held belief that calories do not count or are of only minor importance when it comes to weight loss. Make no mistake: If you wish to lose weight, calories are everything! To successfully lose weight, you must burn more calories in a given time period than you take in, no matter what diet you are following.”
more here: http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com/2007/10/the-biggest-weight-loss-myth-in-history/
I think we all agree you must burn them off; but you’re metabolism can speed up naturally in order to do that. I think Colpo thinks you have to put effort into making them burn off – as he works out 6 days a week.
[Oh, And I wasn’t saying you did have an addiction to working out. It only sounds like you could have a fear to stop being active. I mean, I don’t really believe that given you don’t seem to care about weight and from what you believe; but any of your words could be twisted to make it seem like it just like you could make it seem like anyone else is obsessed with their appearance or fear of fat. Just saying it’s not always what you think it is; it could be you are mis-judging.]
So how can you compare the two? There’s total difference there. Even if they do both eat low-carb, there are plenty other areas of health to consider. Just like someone eating the same amount of carbs as you isn’t necessarily eating the same diet or being at the same activity level.
Anyway; I don’t think low carb is the same as calorie deprivation (depending on the specific low carb regimen..they aren’t all the same). If it were, it would show the same signs most likely as someone who was calorie deprived. As if we were talking about Bellati.
And about Schwarzbein, it’s funny you say that because that’s the target group that she tries to attract after reading her book. Because, by that age people have been doing things long enough to not see immediate damage until suddenly – such as fat gain if you restrict calories too long or are overexercising or are menopausal (she is an endocrinologist – not really a diet guru if you ask me; but I guess anyone could be making up stories, that’s always a possibility but that’s something you can believe or not). And then all the symptoms hit them. There were plenty of success stories with people over 50, and I specifically remember a 60 year old main following a strict low fat plan, like very strict, and his cholesterol and everything began to get worse. It doesn’t mention their exact diets, but there was a very very wide range of people covered in it. Perhaps they all could have been eating flours, sugars, alcohol and other refined things – but the main point of the book was how foods could damage your hormones; and maybe since even I got symptoms she described from eating only fruit for so long, it’s not just about if the sugar is refined or not – and especially with the over exercising and things of that sort. I believe even herself began to try and taper off sugar with honey, and she began to heal eating natural carbs but not as quickly as she could have. You could read it, it’s not too shabby. A lot of things are repeated in it, but the basic context and point of the book is pretty cool.
But the people she puts on low-saturated fat plans aren’t restricting calories, and are eating fiber; so again, it could not just be the polyunsaturated fats. They aren’t eating rancid ones – she’s very into making sure people don’t eat rancid fats. She also is into the omega 3 vs. omega 6 and balancing that out. I don’t know if maybe you take that into consideration while eating polyunsaturated fats you will get different results then if you were to scew off your proportions of omega 3 to 6. Because she also encourages flax oil. So maybe under different circumstances, polyunsaturated fats aren’t completely bad. Just like people try to blame saturated fat for causes of things, while showing butter on a big piece of white toast and pointing at the butter like it’s the asshole.
If the metabolism speeds up and you lose weight by eating more, then you're using more calories than you take in. There is no way to lose weight without a calorie deficit. Colpo agrees the low-carb diets can be more satiating, but he disagrees that your metabolism will increase much, esp eating the typical low-carb diet. He cites many feeding studies where calorie intake determined weight loss or gain & it made no difference if the diets were high-carb, low-carb, high-fat, low-fat, high-calorie, or low-calorie. Matt does not disprove the rule. The body wastes energy on low-carb diets through futile cycles. Also, there are calories in the urine and feces. I cited one study done on pigs where a zero-carb diet (85% fat and 15% protein) caused them to lose 25% of the calories in their feces. So much for the idea of metabolic advantage. If you absorb fewer calories, or you waste more, then you can create a deficit and lose weight, even while eating more and doing less exercise. You can't lose any weight without an energy deficit. Those who claim otherwise are fools.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6735620
“There were plenty of success stories with people over 50, and I specifically remember a 60 year old main following a strict low fat plan, like very strict, and his cholesterol and everything began to get worse.”
He was most likely eating white flour or rancid whole grains, lots of sugar, PUFA oils, etc. I doubt the same things would happen if you ate a low fat diet of skim milk, fruits, potatoes, honey, dry fish, root vegetables, shellfish, etc. (Or the diet people eat in Kitava, with low-fat, high carbs, and low protein.)
“Perhaps they all could have been eating flours, sugars, alcohol and other refined things – but the main point of the book was how foods could damage your hormones; and maybe since even I got symptoms she described from eating only fruit for so long, it’s not just about if the sugar is refined or not – and especially with the over exercising and things of that sort.”
You probably weren’t eating enough food. You cut calories too much. You should’ve been drinking fruit juices and eating as much fruit as possible, like ten pounds of grapes a day, a whole watermelon in a day, etc. Of course you can damage your metabolism on a low-calorie diet, but it doesn’t prove that the macronutrients in the diet were to blame. Eating a diet of fruit, you would have to eat like a real competitive eater to be healthy, IMO. If you are not pounding the fruit down like pounds at each meal, you’re not going to meet your energy needs. Adding some lean fish would probably help, too.
Many diets can rebalance hormones.
I know that’s what I was saying about metabolism. But you aren’t creating a deficit, you are burning off what you need to and metabolism is leveled. This is why it will slow down (either right away in less genetically gifted people or over a long period of time eventually, unless the person were to continue what h/she was doing only with less food and more working out) if you stop eating so much or you work out too much. It’s silly to count calories so specifically because it’s not even that accurate. It’s better to let the metabolism do it’s job correctly, and it will work out a lot better if it just gets fed the right food. Obviously eating a lot of fat might be good for that. But balanced with the right proportions of carbs and protein.
Eating to make your hormones and metabolism balanced shouldn’t be wasteful of energy. The pigs aren’t getting fed a Schwarzbein diet. Her point is to make it so that the calories you consume are all going towards repair or maintenance. It doesn’t target loosing weight only – she even tells people they might gain at first because they’re putting on fat, muscle, and bone but also repairing cells and eventually the fat will decrease if it needs to. – depending on which category you fall into; in her second book she makes specifics about what “type” of damaged metabolism you could have regarding insulin and adrenal glands.
This old guy could have tried that; but how do you know it might just take him longer to heal that way? When Schwarzbein had said she switched from sugars to honey and natural things, she said it took her at least 6 years to finally get to the point where she repaired her metabolism. (She had gained weight rapidly that way also when she dropped all the sugars and things and ate a different high carb diet). Though, it’s questionable what exactly her diet was on her newer high carb diet…But still; it’s a possibility that perhaps in order to heal people it’s best to target fat as more of a food then a Kitava diet. I’m not saying all carbs are bad, here, just making that clear. But some diets might be better then others in order to repair faster.
Actually the more food I ate the more weight I would loose. In the beginning I was eating every two hours or so and tried to eat atleast a pound or two of each fruit each time until I couldn’t eat a thing – I mean I really stuck to the advice; I wanted to do it correctly, and I did everything Graham suggested. Then I just started eating higher calorie fruits like dates and bananas and eventually all I wanted were dates. I was pretty much always full, and that’s what I liked about it, because previously being a vegan I always felt hungry. I think that may have helped even get rid of addictions (I was getting pretty sick of dates, and sugar only, haha). I totally forgot what it feels like to be addicted to something like a pastry or bread. At first though when I switched diets and I wasn’t eating enough carbohydrates I craved sugar, but that went away. I don’t know if ten pounds of fruit is possible a day or per meal. I may have been getting somewhere around 3 to 5. I usually just ate whole fruit because that’s what Graham recommended. The only juice I drank was orange. Everything was organic. And yeah, fish probably would have helped. That diet’s seriously deficient in fat and protein, as it was obvious in my nails, which are now like bullet proof.
I agree with Ben that we can’t judge any person’s health by their looks. For all you know, Diana Schwarzbein uses plastic surgery, hair extensions, etc. You can’t know that she’s really healthy. Look at Jan Kwasniewski. Matt said he still has his hair at an advanced age and someone pointed out that it’s a wig (which I had suspected). Judging health by weight is ridiculous too. Are Charles and Anthony Colpo healthier than AV because they’re under 10% body fat and he’s 20%? No. It has nothing to do with health what some person weighs or how heavy they are. It maybe better to have more body fat. Who knows. We can’t say it’s necessarily an ideal situation to be thin when you are metabolically damaged. People on Eades’ blog, like ItsTheWooo, say they have to restrict calories or they will be obese. Maybe they need to be stop worrying and just eat as much as they want and maybe change their diet the 180 way (no carbs one week, 10 pounds of fruit a day next week). They are content to just keep on being miserable on Eades’s stupid diet, with protein powder, artificial sugars, stimulants, and other processed crap.
Maybe she’s all natural. Just as good of a chance. You don’t have to assume everyone is faking their look; though I understand there’s always a possibility. But her reasoning makes sense, and fits with why she looks young and healthy.
And yeah, I wish people wouldn’t focus on less food makes less weight. Maybe whoever thinks they have to calorie restrict doesn’t really have to – they just think that in some way they’ve got a messed up body that only responds to less food to make less weight. In that case, this is when the real problem should get addressed rather then looking for easy ways out, such as limiting all food or substituting splenda for sugar; or in low-fat wise, margarine or olestra for butter or fat. Or vegan wise, mimicking egg and meat dishes.
Natural food rings the bell of duh in this case.
“Maybe she’s all natural. Just as good of a chance. You don’t have to assume everyone is faking their look; though I understand there’s always a possibility.”
But you could also look healthy and have underlying problems. So either way there is no way to make any conclusions by her appearance or Matt’s. Any diet’s a trade off. Maybe Matt’s fast metabolism wastes muscle. Compared to male models and lean actors, Matt is puny. And let’s take the idea that nobody should do exercise to a logical conclusion. Suppose everybody in the world decided to stop doing anything physical including manual labor, because they are damaging their metabolisms. The world grinds to a halt and then where is Matt? His choice to be sedentary depends on someone else being active (farmers or ranchers, among others). There are trade offs. Maybe actors like Statham lowered their metabolic rate, but they also have lots of muscle and are extremely fit. So who’s healthier, Matt or the elite level athlete, manual laborer, fitness model, personal trainer, or movie star? There’s not just one standard of health defined by Matt and Diana and others.
On the topic of good health, it’s solving personal health problems that’s really what it’s all about. Schwarzbein used to shave her beard in the morning, and be overweight while trying to eat as little as possible and exercise as much as she had the will to. She is obviously in far superior condition now, and yes, her focus is menopausal women, not 31-year old males. Her latest book is on menopause, hitting bookstores on 3/2.
I used to not have a fast metabolism. I had to exercise 40 hours a week to keep from gaining weight. Now I stay lean, like a a younger person who can eat McDonald’s and not gain weight, no matter what I eat. I don’t have to avoid carbs, but I find keeping them slightly lower than the norm allows me to be better satiated.
Also, we’ve played devil’s advocate for so long that it’s obvious that there is confusion surrounding my own personal diet, lifestyle, and beliefs. I am a hardcore sun worshiper, believe fully in movement, being on your feet, and not being seated in front of a computer all day for health. I only went below 100 grams of carbs per day during FUMP – for the first time in my life, as an experiment. Now I’m back up to 200 grams of carbs per day or so, with less protein and less extreme amounts of fat. My weight is exactly the same as it was on Day 30 of zero carb. I even did a fruit fast for 3 days last week, eating up to 20 pieces of fruit a day. I came off of it with no sugar cravings, a sign that I am improving.
I exercise at least 5 days a week. I am just as fit as I was exercising 10 times as much in my early 20’s, and far leaner due to my junk-food free diet. I can also rest for a few days without getting stiff, achy, irritable, and depressed like I did in the past as Todd made mention of. I am no longer addicted to exercise.
I am still an advocate of exercise, but fight with all my will against the message that overwieght people should eat a low calorie diet and exercise as much as possible. It is a bad strategy. Losing weight does not require hunger or strain. Personally, avoiding hunger and changing my exercise patterns from extreme to light allowed my body to “fill out.” I could easily get in ‘Men’s Health’ shape in 30 days if I was driven to do so, but I’m not. Getting leaner than I am now would require starvation and overexercising. Getting to a healthy weight, with healthy and normal supplies of evenly-distribtued body fat, does not require either.
Bruce,
Funny you should poke me for “wasting” calories by eating low carb, when an article in this month’s issue of The Economist talks at length about how 30% less calories are absorbed from raw foods as opposed to cooked foods. That denatured proteins and cooked starch, for example, can be digested at higher efficiency. Take this into consideration when touting your ability to drink raw milk by the gallon, chug honey, and eat tons of raw meat. For all we know, you could have slowed down your metabolism doing that by delivering less calories to your cells from the same amount of food.
Granted, eating really low carb slows the metabolism, that I won’t argue.
Matt: "30% less calories are absorbed from raw foods as opposed to cooked foods. That denatured proteins and cooked starch, for example, can be digested at higher efficiency."
What foods were they talking about? I'm sure there is a difference between meat and plant foods. But if you believe raw food is less digestible, why eat it? It seems you only eat raw dairy and barely cooked meats. Jan K says food should be thoroughly cooked. Why not do it?
"Take this into consideration when touting your ability to drink raw milk by the gallon, chug honey, and eat tons of raw meat. For all we know, you could have slowed down your metabolism doing that by delivering less calories to your cells from the same amount of food."
I do take this into consideration, and I did at the time. I ate probably 80% more food than I was eating before, because I was eating a very-low-carb diet before & not eating milk or honey. I ate the same amount of eggs, more meat, 2-4 quarts of milk, a cup of honey, and raw vegetable juice instead of whole veggies. I still lost weight fast and probably would have continued losing weight if I didn't add some starches (sprouted bread).
Raw meat might provide more calories, in the form of glucose for gluconeogenesis. Witness Lex Rooker's experiences gaining weight by eating more fat on a raw paleo meat-and-organ diet. If you're right raw dairy has less calories, and less usable protein, why not eat pasteurized cheese, butter, milk, and cream? I doubt that my metabolism was slowed down.
Matt: “Schwarzbein used to shave her beard in the morning, and be overweight while trying to eat as little as possible and exercise as much as she had the will to. She is obviously in far superior condition now…”
But how do we know she was overweight or had facial hair? She can say anything in her book. Do you believe everything that AV writes in books or articles? I don’t. Maybe Schwarzbein was always attractive, ate a healthy diet growing up, and never had any health problems. Maybe she has a lot of plastic surgery, hair extensions, make-up, etc. Prove me wrong.
“I used to not have a fast metabolism. I had to exercise 40 hours a week to keep from gaining weight.”
That’s an insane amount of exercise, but what about somebody who works at a tough job where they do 40 hours of hard labor a week standing on their feet and moving around? Are they ruining their body like Schwarzbein seems to think?
“Now I stay lean, like a a younger person who can eat McDonald’s and not gain weight, no matter what I eat.”
But can you eat four bacon double cheese burgers (with the buns) and not gain any weight? Do you have cheat days, like Tim Ferriss and others suggest?
“I don’t have to avoid carbs, but I find keeping them slightly lower than the norm allows me to be better satiated.”
I have been experimenting with a low-fat diet and more fiber. I don’t notice any difference in satiety between skim milk and half-and-half or cheese. I just have to eat more carbs like honey or fruit to feel satisfied, but my weight stays the same. I don’t notice any problems unless I start eating grains. I no longer put a lot of faith in the WAPF dogma of eating all the fat-soluble vitamins / fermented fermented food you can. You don’t need a lot of fat-soluble vitamins if you avoid foods that deplete them (like PUFAs and grains – esp bleached white flour). Two of doctors using the raw milk cure said skim milk was as good as whole milk and often better. One used non-fat dry milk with fruits and healed people. How would Weston Price explain their results? How would Sally Fallon explain them? I think you could be healthy on a diet both low in fat and low in fat soluble vitamins, given the absence of grains and refined sugars and vegetable oils. Say a diet of non-fat milk, very lean seafood, potato,
coconut oil, fruit, and honey.
“I am still an advocate of exercise, but fight with all my will against the message that overwieght people should eat a low calorie diet and exercise as much as possible.”
I don’t believe in exercising as much as possible and never have. I read Clarence Bass’s articles on interval training ~13 years ago, I think. My exercise has been based on Clarence Bass, Art De Vany, and Mark Sisson ever since. What will truly shorten your life is exercising all the time like Bruce Lee. I’ve heard that he would exercise while reading or watching TV, he was exercising constantly at high intensity and short duration (“greasing the groove” as Pavel calls it). Combined with keeping his body fat at 2-3%, Bruce Lee probably shortened his life by about 2/3rds as a result of that. But I’m sure that Bass, DeVany, Sisson, Jack LaLanne, Bob Delmonteque and others will stay fit and healthy 95-100 years plus.
http://www.bobdelmonteque.com/
I can eat 4 double bacon cheeseburgers with the bun and not gain weight as long as I don’t eat sugar.
I actually tried this for a while, eating Big Mac’s and Double quarter pounders. I do know that eventually, after eating fries and drinking coke with it in large meals, I would start to gain weight, but it would take time.
I think just about any obese person could lose weight eating double bacon cheeseburgers as long as they steered clear of the fries and coke that come with it (or at least one of the two, like Mac Daddy Don Gorske – no fries).
I believe everything Schwarzbein says because I experienced everything that she claims people experience on her diet, barring that they don’t have a severe glandular disorder requiring treatment with bioidentical hormones. This is precisely how Melvin Page treated his patients as well – a no sugar whole foods diet with plenty of fat and protein. It worked for most within weeks. For the rest he provided glandular support in addition to his diet/lifestyle recommendations.
As for the 40 hours of manual labor per week, it all depends on how a person lives and eats otherwise. Work hard for 40 hours a week, party all weekend, don’t get enough sleep, drink Red Bull all day at work, skip meals, and eat cheap, processed food and the exercise will wear you down. Perhaps this is why the manual laborers in the U.S. have far more obesity issues than those stuck in cubicles all day long.
Schwarzbein exercises plenty, which she says is fine as long as you “eat and sleep to rebuild.” She is no anti-exercise person either, but she, like myself, suggests eating well first, healing yourself up a bit, and then beginning an exercise program weeks or months down the road depending on how screwed up you were to begin with.
Matt: “I can eat 4 double bacon cheeseburgers with the bun and not gain weight as long as I don’t eat sugar.”
What about HFCS in the ketchup and maybe PUFA oils in the bun, mayonnaise, etc?
“I think just about any obese person could lose weight eating double bacon cheeseburgers as long as they steered clear of the fries and coke that come with it (or at least one of the two, like Mac Daddy Don Gorske – no fries).”
I would think that fries and soft drinks are the worst part of fast food, but the bleached enriched bread filled with PUFA oils and/or trans fat is a close second. If I eat fast food, I avoid the buns and fries and soft drinks.
“I believe everything Schwarzbein says because I experienced everything that she claims people experience on her diet, barring that they don’t have a severe glandular disorder requiring treatment with bioidentical hormones.”
But many people experience the things AV says they will experience. Do you accept all of his stories as true? Like testing every supplement sold in the health food store he worked at? Like recovering from a poison mushroom? Like doing studies on animals to prove his claims? Like all of his bad experiences being detox?
Just because Schwarzbein’s diet works in some people doesn’t prove that she ate a crappy diet growing up and had all kinds of health problems. Maybe Aajonus didn’t have health problems before. He may have distorted or exaggerated his experiences in the same way Schwarzbein (or you) may have. And just because you can stay thin no matter what you eat doesn’t mean that one thing is as healthy as another (fast food burgers with the buns vs. meat and potatose at home). Many people are thin and healthy when they’re young, but then they suddenly gain weight in middle age. Maybe they were just coasting on excess hormones and youthful energy. In fact it might be generally true that old people gain weight across cultures. Didn’t the Eskimos gain weight in old age according to Stefansson? You could say that didn’t matter, but maybe it did.
There really is no way to prove if Shwarzbein or anyone else really did or went through what they claim they did. So it’s useless to debate over it because you’re not going to find out.
But does that even matter, as long as they’re helping even one single person get healthy again? A person doesn’t have to go through nutritional trauma to come up with a breakthrough in understanding the metabolism or the effects that foods have on it (even though it does make them easier to relate to if they did in fact have bad health problems previously.)
I don’t think comparing Aajonus and Schwarzbein is really a good argument; yes it makes sense what you said, that just because you experience what they said will happen doesn’t mean it’s a safe bet, but that’s not what the point was. One person can believe whoever they want – and take what either suggests will happen as good or bad. So yeah, maybe having no cravings whatsoever, a healthy weight (without over exercising or stressing over calories), and a positive outlook on life is a bad thing. But uh, I like to think of it as pretty good symptoms of a diet, if you ask me. And it fitting in with the whole explanation such as hormones being in balance, something agreed upon by most modern doctors and endocrinologists (just approached differently to “fix”) is a lot different from, “I did tests on animals, and trust me, you don’t want to eat that, you want to eat this. And I also ate it, and you still don’t want to eat it.”
And I think suggesting a natural diet and sitting inside all day would be a bit of an oxymoron…haha
"There really is no way to prove if Shwarzbein or anyone else really did or went through what they claim they did. So it's useless to debate over it because you're not going to find out."
So we shouldn't have blind faith in diet gurus, like Schwarzbein, AV, Atkins, JK, Eades, Sally Fallon, Bernstein, Fuhrman, Ornish, Graham, or anyone else. They all have stories about how sick they were & how they healed themselves, and they all recommend different diets which work for some people and not for others. All they have in common is they stopped doing one thing and did something else. Then they act like their diet is the best ever and everyone else's diet is worthless.
At least Matt admits that there are many paths to the same goal and he has gotten past the WAPF dogma to "eat as much fat soluble vitamins and fermented foods and raw foods as you can." BTW, Matt, Jan K. says you should eat mostly "well-cooked" food and things vegetables and fiber are animal fodder. He sees no problem eating potatoes, sugar, and white flour as long as the carbs are low (50-100g). But like most diet gurus he has the "holier than thou" complex that his diet is the best. The second-best diet in his view is like the Kitavans or Japanese (low-fat, high carb, low protein). But why?
Most people who found a diet that helped them usually were sick and are wanting to share information with people to try to help them.
How do you know people following these programs? How do you know if some people weren’t doing it right or if they had problems unaddressed they couldn’t fix by a certain diet? I think as people, we all must have some things common enough in order to be able to have one -basic- diet that should potentially work for everyone, or anyone who is not sick – or a program set up for different people in order to get them unsick or healed.
Also, I don’t know how you could call Schwarzbein a guru, really. Most people who hear about her didn’t believe her at all and quite rejected what she was presenting to them. (In the stories at least; and no I can’t prove anything). But the way she explained things weren’t mystical in anyway, like that people should eat fruit as a diet because we have hands and we can see colors. Or that we should eat raw food only because animals do. Or because enzymes in food die and become diseases.
I agree with you, Bruce. But I think that the faith isn’t necessarily “blind” when there’s evidence that what that person is recommending is actually working. It’s still faith though because we all know that the same miracle diet won’t work for everyone. That’s probably why everyone acts like their diet is the best – because they THINK that they’ve tried everything else and they just happened to stumble across something that works for them.
I kind of have a soft spot for Schwarzbein because she tries to base her program on common sense and what she’s seen work in real life instead of making sensationalist claims.
Yeah, Matt does admit that there are alot of paths to the same goal. That’s why I read this blog!
“I think as people, we all must have some things common enough in order to be able to have one -basic- diet that should potentially work for everyone, or anyone who is not sick”
C
for what its worth, trying to homogenise diet into a one size fits all scenario assumes that firstly, there is someone who knows the answer to the question, and also that there is actually a universal eating protocol (one specific diet). There is no way of arriving at an answer without a belief that there is such a thing in the first place.
Again for what its worth, this blog is quite unique in that folk undermine and pull the rug out from under various dietary beliefs.
Replacing one rug with another is an understandable characeristic, but nevertheless is still underpinned by a particular theoretical belief.
This is not to denigrate the advice of AV, Schwarzbein or anyone else who provides advice that an individual, some, or many people have found beneficial.
Just to point out that human thought has its inherant limitations
Kind wishes, J
when I say basic
I mean extremely basic
basic in a complex way
if you want to make sense of that at all
just making that clear, jaaaayyy
Chloe, guru has nothing to do with being mystical. Schwarzbein makes wild claims, like “alcohol is toxic” or “aged cheeses have damaged proteins.” Her opinions are arbitrary, like saying one cheese is bad and another is good. This may be helpful for certain people, but it’s not true in general. And many will thrive eating the foods she says are toxic or damaged. How bad is alcohol? That depends on the rest of your diet, what type of alcohol, your reasons for drinking, etc. What might be unhealthy for a person eating SAD, being sleep deprived, and under lots of stress may be perfectly healthy for somebody in another situation. We shouldn’t have any faith in a guru’s personal history. That doesn’t have any relevance whatsoever to whether their ideas are valid. Nobody is in a position to have “tried everything” and anyone who pretends they have should be immediately suspect.
In her defense, Schwarzbein’s diet IS for menopausal women that (likely) don’t care about going as in-depth into why certain foods are “bad” and for what reasons and in what context. Most of them just want to lose weight, that’s it. It’s easier and more convenient for Schwarzbein’s readers to get results by making generalizations about foods (ex. alcohol and cheeses.)She’s already stressing them out with macro-nutrient ratios anyway.
I don’t think it’s a wild claim to say that alcohol is toxic, because it is! Just because you can incorporate it into a diet occasionally with no negative side effects doesn’t mean it’s harmless and i know that you know that :)
Alcohol can be more or less toxic, based on diet. Also, there are other toxins in alcohol that are known to cause the hang overs, not the ethanol itself. They have taken these toxins out and given them to people with no alcohol and they get hang overs. Meanwhile, pure ethanol has fewer problems. Potato vodka seems to be a lot less toxic than grain alcohol. There are many variables with alcohol. You can say cigarettes are toxic, but 80% of the men and women in Kitava smoke and they don’t have related health issues. Something in their diet protects them, like their low PUFA intake (2%), lack of refined sugars and grains, etc. They are probably using natural tobacco, not modern tobacco with hundreds of additives. But still, we can note that tobacco is not enough to cause heart disease, cancer, etc. Alcohol will not cause liver cirrhosis or fatty liver in the absence of PUFA oils. In fact, it has been shown that saturated fats (like beef tallow and coconut oil) prevent and reverse alcoholic liver damage even with continued alcohol intake. Fats with more PUFAs – like fish oil, lard, and chicken skin – will increase the risk. High-PUFA vegetable oils are much worse.
Whatever you eat will kill you. No foods promise eternal life. Exposing the cells to energy is toxic. Alcohol in the right context maybe less toxic than some other forms of energy. Toxicity is relative to the overall diet and lifestyle.
Besides it’s not like she claims to know everything. She basically gives advice, just like you do, Bruce. You think polyunsaturated fats are bad (with your experience) and she thinks alcohol is bad (with her experience). Though bad I know is a very general term here.
Don’t go calling everyone a guru that has information about a diet and writes a book.
Oh yeah, and she mentions alcohol won’t kill you if you drink it once in a while. Just not a lot. Sounds like someone’s recommendations, who..wass, that?
I think everyone wants to believe whatever they discover about diet is correct in some way (maybe not completely, and with doubt, but in some kind of way), no matter who they are, but how you present it is what makes you look like a guru just in it for attention and fame and money.
Bruce,
about those milk-fattening tribes
it was a man named John Speke who went around and studied different tribes; it seems he visited quite a few who used milk as a “fattening agent” but what they also seemed to feed to people was some form of sugar with the milk. I’d have to look more into it to find out if it was skim or whole; but even if it was whole – that extra sugar paired with milk will probably no doubt be fattening.
Taubes also wrote the sumo wrestlers consumed about 5000 or more calories per day; but 67% as carbohydrates and around 18% as fat; the smaller and much less muscular wrestlers consumed even less fat (9%) and more carbohydrates.
I also am interested exactly what skim milk was used by these two guys to ‘cure’ people or help people and what exactly their whole idea is rather then just saying skim milk is better then whole for curing people. Because there’s tons of people who disagree I’m sure. I know it’s an example that supposedly it can be used to help people, but how do they know it was really the skim milk helping and not something else? I’d like more elaboration on what exactly they did with skim milk or how they helped cure people of disease.
Anyway, brought this back up because I was reading Taubes book and all this popped up so I wanted to clear the dust so to speak.
Hey Mista’ Stone,
Just wanted to introduce myself as a new follower of your blog. I really like your perspective and sense of humor when it comes to health and nutrition. I look forward to being entertained/enlightened in the months (years?) ahead.
My new blog will cover aspects of nutrition and health you may be interested in, such as experiential primitive living, anthropology, paleo diets, and such. Drop on by some time and check it out!
I hope that we can be the bestest of blog dawgs. ;-)
— Ryan
Hey Matt
After reading your blog I purchased Broda Barnes book hypothyroidism. What a great read.
Thanks
i have to agree…the broda barnes book on hypothyroidism is really good!!! Written way back in the 70s and way ahead of these new diet books!!
I am going to order the Primal diet book that you and bruce k are always talking about.
hope you doing well!
troy
I think Schwarzbein’s dilly is healing people from metabolic issues. She feels confident that substances that have an addictive pull need to be removed. I feel confident about that too. Of course, the ultimate would be to be able to consume substances and not become addicted to them. That I acknowledge.
Ryan,
Together we can be blog dogs and do it bloggie-style. Yessir.
Glad you guys enjoyed Broda Barnes as well. Advanced for those days is a good description, and to think he could actually write in a way that was entertaining to read. What a rarity
“I think Schwarzbein’s dilly is healing people from metabolic issues. She feels confident that substances that have an addictive pull need to be removed. I feel confident about that too.”
Her opinions about what substances cause addiction are speculative. I don’t think anyone could get addicted to sugar eaten by itself (dry). Cookies, doughnuts, ice cream and soft drinks are another matter entirely. Some foods she endorses (wheat and other grains) may be more addictive than some foods she forbids. Foods which she says are “addictive” are often eaten along with other foods, so maybe she has deemed guilt by association.
“Of course, the ultimate would be to be able to consume substances and not become addicted to them. That I acknowledge.”
Nothing is inherently addictive. Healthy people can drink alcohol with every meal and smoke natural tobacco every day with no negative effects. Most of the Kitavan people smoke. Many healthy cultures take alcohol with meals like water.
Chloe: "Don't go calling everyone a guru that has information about a diet and writes a book."
Why not? Schwarzbein has a lot in common with people like Atkins, Eades, Fuhrman, Ornish, Groves, Taubes, and others. They all think they have the "one true diet", like the "one true religion" or the "one true God." Anyone who goes against their dogma is a heretic engaging in addictive behavior or they are going to degenerate because they don't balance their meal in accordance with the Divine Macronutrient Ratios. The body is widely adaptable and gurus pretend it's a static system.
My health has improved massively by just ignoring all the dogma from the low-carb and high-carb crowd. That's probably the best point tbat Matt has made. You don't have to eat low-fat, high-fat, low-carb, or high-carb. If you avoid fast food and junk food (or at least the very worst of them), you can thrive on many different ratios. I've been eating ultra low-fat & high-carb the last month, but low grains and not much refined carbs. My digestion and elimination improved. Skin is smooth and vibrant. I have no signs of any "fat deficiency." The low-carb gurus want you to believe that an apple will put fat on your body, but you need large amounts of dietary fat to be healthy. They are 100% wrong on both counts. Only if you eat an apple with lots of other food will it be fattening. Eat 10 pounds of fruit a day, and very little else, you will shed body fat just as fast as someone eating "zero carb", if not faster.
The notion that carbs are only used for "energy" is also stupid. Carbs are used to make solvents, hormones, cholesterol, and special fatty acids like Mead Acid. Fruits are cleansers. Many people wiped out cancer by eating nothing but grapes for a few weeks or months. The delusion that carbs cause cancer is absurd. They only do that if they are refined and/or mixed with high-PUFA oils.
Bruce K:
What carbs do you eat? Tons of fruit or honey by the cup? Fruit shouldn’t be your first choice when you want to minimize fiber intake. You even discarded chocolate because of trace amounts of fiber.
I think fiber is less problematic if you don’t eat fat with it. Matt pointed this out, that he would have copious waste if he ate lots of fiber with fat. I noticed the same thing. So I tried just eating a lot of fiber, but with no fat. I noticed my digestion improved. Chocolate has all kinds of stimulants, plus it’s both high fat and high fiber (5x more fiber than a potato without the skin). It puts a huge strain on digestion and hormonal levels, IMO. I feel better without it and see an obvious energy drop and increased hunger when I eat 85% or higher dark chocolate. White chocolate doesn’t have these toxic effects, perhaps because it doesn’t have the stimulants and fiber. Chocolate is a very high-fiber food, compared to peeled fruits, cooked vegetables, and potatoes.
Brown rice has less fiber than chocolate and would probably be healthier. I eat a mix of fruit, honey, potatoes, Lundberg organic white sushi rice, Berlin Bakery Sourdough Spelt bread, and Food For Life Sprouted 7-Grain or 7-G Cinnamon Raisin. I bought some Lundberg Golden Rose Brown Rice, which is as low in fiber as white. Just 1g of fiber per 1/4 cup (dry). If I am eating much fat with a meal, I try to keep the fiber at 1g or less. If I don’t eat much fat (5-10g maybe), I can eat a lot of fiber with no problems.
I’m sure a lot of people think they’ve found the answers. But I find there’s a difference between being confident about something and rejecting everything else presented to you. I’m sure someone like Schwarzbein might debate a topic a little more leniently then someone like Doug Graham. But if they have more background on a subject, of course they’re going to be confident it works. Doug’s background is, “one day, I thought I should only eat fruit and vegetables”; and Schwarzbein’s is endocrinology. If you’re skeptical about everything, and you’re a doctor, how are you ever going to treat someone fast enough? If their program works for people, it works. Works is everyone’s own definition. If eating fruit leads you to breaking down over time but getting rid of diabetes, then you might say it works. Some might say that works temporarily but not long term.
I get what you’re saying as, “follow me, it’s the only way” is guruish, but anyone in the field of health or medicine who helps people comes off that way in order to make people actually commit to what they’re trying to accomplish. After they’re effectively “healed” is when skepticism should arrive – or if they don’t ever start to feel “healed”; since I think we agree that there are many approaches to healing different things. Schwarzbein just happens to dig deep into more about what can fix hormonal and metabolic things and all the food she recommends is actually very general, and her plan is very stretchable to meet certain theories she holds; which is why it seems practical and not a guru approach. Just common sense, more like. Different ways to achieve what she talks about may be possible, but the plan she lays out, like I said, both probably will help or be manipulated to accomplish similar things for each individual. It’s just harder to criticize someone who isn’t able to generally talk to the public constantly.
Sven, I also eat organic “Grade B” maple syrup and root vegetables sometimes. I’m mainly eating carbs that are edible raw: fruit, honey, maple syrup, vegetables. I feel better with low starch.
Chloe: “Works is everyone’s own definition. If eating fruit leads you to breaking down over time but getting rid of diabetes, then you might say it works. Some might say that works temporarily but not long term.”
I don’t think you would break down from fresh ripe fruit if you ate enough. The problem is that your metabolism will go up, so it’s likely you won’t eat enough. You would have to eat at least 10 pounds of mixed fruit a day. If you ate watery fruits, you would have to eat more. The body is wildly adaptable, like Matt has said. People can drink non-fat milk and orange juice with no deficiency if they eschew refined sugars, grains, and PUFA vegetable oils. The question isn’t just what we need to be healthy, because the diet changes those needs.
Bruce K:
That’s quite some change of heart from fiber-hating to fiber-gorging. Why should fiber only be problematic with fat? Does fibre expand its size with fat? What is the mechanism?
I’ve always wondered why you were eating a (quite) high fat diet, while advocating Ray Peats ideas. Are you planning to stay with Low Fat-Ray Peat-style? You could get really low on the PUFA-side with that kind of diet.
Because you don’t want to eat large amounts of starch, you have to eat quite a lot of fruit, honey, maple syrup, etc. . Do you prefer those foods (tastewise) over fatty foods or are you totally indifferent?
Ray Peat doesn’t promote low fat, I’m pretty sure. Just low polyunsaturated fats. He’s a fan of saturated fats. And a total hater of vegetables.
Here’s a reason high fiber may be problematic with high fat intake, as provided by Ray Peat,
“Prev Med 1987 Jul;16(4):540-4 Fiber, stool bulk, and bile acid output: implications for colon cancer risk. McPherson-Kay R Dietary fiber has direct effects on stool bulk and bile acid output that may be of relevance in the etiology of colon cancer. Most types of fiber increase the total volume of stool and reduce the concentration of specific substances, including bile acids, that are in contact with the bowel wall. However, fibers differ in their effect on stool bulk, with wheat fiber being a more effective stool bulking agent than fruit and vegetable fibers. In addition, the extent to which a specific fiber reduces bile acid concentration will be modified by its concomitant effects on total fecal sterol excretion. Whereas wheat bran reduces fecal bile acid concentration, pectin, lignin, and oat bran do not. These three fibers significantly increase total bile acid output. Bile acids act as promoters of colonic tumors in mutagenesis assay systems and in various animal models. Human epidemiological studies show a relationship between various dietary variables, including fat and fiber intake, fecal concentration of bile acids, and colon cancer risk.”
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/natural-estrogens.shtml
That’s also another reason why he probably promotes fruits over vegetables and grains; among other pretty sweet reasoning on his part. It’s all in his website filled with articles.
He also says this about whole milk in an interview:
“…that’s why milk, even fairly fat, or whole milk, is not associated with obesity. Where I first noticed it was when I was on a trip, I was in Russia where everyone was fat, and when I crossed over to Finland — I hadn’t been able to get any good milk in Russia, but crossing the border into Finland, everyone had milk and cheese in their stores, and I noticed that everyone was slender and healthy looking there. And so I looked at the research and I saw that milk drinkers have a very low incidence of obesity…”
So there ya go! :)
Wow, Bruce. You got some balls, dude! I can’t say that I agree with your idea to do high-carb low-fat using all that fruit and honey and whatnot, but I certainly respect your willingness to experiment and question prominent health theories.
I used to frequent your Yahoo Group called “AV Skeptics,” where you were whole-heartedly endorsing a diet of coconut oil, raw meat, and chocolate. You’ve really done a 180, my friend!
Have you ever been overweight in your life? If not, there’s a good explanation as to why you can eat plenty of carbs and not gain. Check out this review of documentary called, “Why Are Thin People Not Fat”:
http://www.tvscoop.tv/2009/01/tv_review_horiz_10.html
Just because you have a healthy metabolism now doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have one if you continue a high-carb diet. And it doesn’t mean that your kids (if you choose to have any in the future) will either. In other words, it’s not just your diet, but your parents’ diet and their parents’ diet that affects how you handle certain foods metabolically.
If an obese person were to try what you’re doing, they might suffer for it. But maybe you can “get away with it” due to your metabolism … ?
Anyway, just some thoughts.
I think if you have a large appetite as a kid, it was probably terrible foods which could make that appetite worse, leading to the hormone imbalance, leading to the fat gain, leading to the rest of the copious health problems. That was a pretty good, but general, article but focused on genes and what the parents ate probably do play a role in determining certain things (the breastfeeding thing was definitely interesting), but I bet if the supposed “fat” people who don’t have controlled appetites could be a regular weight just like anyone else given the right food. Hm, kind of like me! haha
If I went and ate as much as I do right now only with processed vegan food and got full that way – I’d be wayyy worse off, I can tell you that. I don’t believe anyone’s set weight is obesity. It kind of sounds like that’s what they’re saying. A little vague they iss. To get more specific, what about the food they’re eating? Total hormone outrage. Digestive upset. major chaooos. diabetes, hypothyroidism and obesity, oh my!
Bruce,
Good points up above as always. I will say that Schwarzbein doesn’t advocate ground grains. That, to her, is refined. I don’t know anyone addicted to eating whole barley or wheat berry gruel. Breads? Hell yes.
Schwarzbein also states very emphatically that as she started to eat well, she started craving things less and less. There is much validity to this. The more well-nourished a person is, (or lab animal), the less sugar, alcohol, etc. they consume.
Ryan,
As for carbs causing a person to get fat or not, everything has to do with metabolism. For example, if someone has chronic high cortisol levels, their cells will block out glucose, raise insulin levels, store fat, and leave them hungry and tired while slowing down the rate at which they oxidize fuel (low active thyroid). The question to ask is, “does this make carbs bad or a person’s metabolism bad?”
I’d say the metabolism, and that carbohydrates are not inherently bad – regardless of what the Paleo arguments may be. Sure, you can live without carbohydrates, and many report health improvements without them – but does that make the carbohydrate inherently sinister?
Low-carb gurus always point to insulin, as if insulin is bad, and anything that raises it – even if it’s just a temporary rise, is the plague. But it’s not, and carbohydrates don’t have any direct relationship with the cause of insulin resistance, which is a huge problem, and causes chronic high insulin levels – a totally different animal than the normal peaks and valleys that carbohydrate consumption causes.
What Bruce and I strive to get to the bottom of, is that if carbohydrate consumption makes you gain weight, then fixing that metabolic disorder is the ultimate triumph in comparison to the other route – avoiding them. The ultimate goal in human health science (or whatever ya wanna call it) is fixing problems, not avoiding them.
Bruce is pointing out foods such as raw honey, fruits, and fruit juices, particularly when eaten in huge quantities by themselves, can be more healing than avoiding these foods. Perhaps. And this is perhaps why gurus like Furhman, Schulze, Hulda Clark, Doug Graham, and others swear by the healing potential of these uber high-carb, low-fat/protein diets. I do believe they have healing potential, just as high-fat low-fiber, low-carb diets have tremendous healing potential. Just as moderate-carb no sugar diets have healing potential (anti-candida). But all sides are making the same mistake. They are demonizing certain foods in a long list of healthy foods that have nourished our ancestors for centuries without ill effects. No natural foodstuff is inherently toxic. The human being is highly adaptable and can turn numerous foodstuffs into healthy tissue and cellular energy.
Or, better put as my blog once stated…
Fat causes disease, carbs? What next, air?
Matt: “I will say that Schwarzbein doesn’t advocate ground grains. That, to her, is refined. I don’t know anyone addicted to eating whole barley or wheat berry gruel. Breads? Hell yes.”
I just skimmed her first two books, but didn’t see her say that. I do know Joel Fuhrman said to avoid refined and whole grain flour, unless they’re very fresh. He also says to avoid all refined sugar and processed vegetable oils. The whole wheat flour in most products is rancid. The Berlin sourdough spelt bread I have been getting is freshly ground and then fermented 24 hours without yeast. It is the best bread I’ve found – followed by Food For Life’s Sprouted 7-grain bread. Those are in a different class from the garbage sitting on store shelves loaded with preservatives, HFCS, hydrogenated soybean oil, canola oil, etc. Those are mostly rancid and toxic, IMO. Fuhrman’s diet is superior to other low-fat diets like Dean Ornish, for sure.
“Schwarzbein also states very emphatically that as she started to eat well, she started craving things less and less. There is much validity to this. The more well-nourished a person is, (or lab animal), the less sugar, alcohol, etc. they consume.”
Overcoming cravings is the best sign of health, I think. Diets using artificial sweeteners, rancid flours, and so forth promote cravings. I think it’s silly to say you should eat what you crave. Your body might crave the opposite of what’s really needed, Going by cravings is not reliable. A sound diet should eliminate cravings and rabid hunger.
“Low-carb gurus always point to insulin, as if insulin is bad, and anything that raises it – even if it’s just a temporary rise, is the plague. But it’s not, and carbohydrates don’t have any direct relationship with the cause of insulin resistance, which is a huge problem, and causes chronic high insulin levels – a totally different animal than the normal peaks and valleys that carbohydrate consumption causes.”
I think it’s more the PUFA oil and trans fat causing insulin resistance, combined with being sedentary. Short hard bursts of exercise (like children’s play) would help correct the problem, along with the elimination of (non-frseh) ground grains and refined sugars and PUFA oils. Saying exercise has nothing to do with insulin resistance is dubious. Guys like Michael Phelps eat refined sugar and white flour and PUFA oils every day and are lean and have no insulin resistance. Meanwhile, a person eating like Sally Fallon sitting all day will develop insulin resistance.
I was very active as a kid, running and playing outside every day. Diet isn’t a panacea if you spend all day with video games, internet, and TV, esp sitting in static chairs. I think we should become more like children (about 50 years ago). Most people live like lab rats to quote Art DeVany. They eat processed additive laced “rat chow” diets (fast food, junk food, frozen meals, canned food). Their day starts with coffee or caffeine soft drinks, white flour, refined sugar, and unstable vegetable oils. They can’t eat anything simple, their meals have to be elaborate mixtures and recipes based on cookbooks and so forth.
Another thing about insulin. You need it to build muscle. Most people eating low carbs look puny and weak. They gain fat and lose muscle with age. Look at Eades and Kwaasniewski for two great examples. Barry Groves is another. The claim that insulin makes you fat is absurd. Lots of body-builders shoot up insulin and eat a high-carb low-fat diet. Are they fat? I think not. If your hormones are balanced (with proper diet and/or exercise and/or rest and/or sunlight), you can have high insulin levels, a flat stomach, and huge muscles. Family members ask me if I lift weights and I do little exericse. There is nothing inherent about carbohydrates that makes you fat. Bob Delmonteque and Jack LaLanne both eat high-carb diets. I dare you to find a low-carb dieter with as much muscle as either of them, esp at their age. Bob Delmonteque has a better build than Art DeVany at 84.
http://www.bobdelmonteque.com/
“Most people live like lab rats to quote Art DeVany. They eat processed additive laced “rat chow” diets (fast food, junk food, frozen meals, canned food). Their day starts with coffee or caffeine soft drinks, white flour, refined sugar, and unstable vegetable oils. They can’t eat anything simple, their meals have to be elaborate mixtures and recipes based on cookbooks and so forth. “
haha that is pretty true
I like that Gordon Ramsey gets out there and encourages people to cook food themselves rather then rely on crappy processed frozen stuff. It’s kind of sad how parents would rather feed their kids frozen things then cook. We are totally loosing our common sense – 1 minute meals! Then you can work the rest of the time! what a..great life. Comparing that to any forager, horticulturalist or pastoralist, their lives practically revolve around their food, because, well, food is life. I’d rather be raising some cows then typing at a computer all day.
Sven: “That’s quite some change of heart from fiber-hating to fiber-gorging. Why should fiber only be problematic with fat? Does fibre expand its size with fat? What is the mechanism?”
I’m not really gorging. A cup of raisins has less than 7g of fiber. I found brown rice with only 1g of fiber in 1/4 a cup: Golden Rose. Most brown rice has 3-4x as much. Konstantin Monastyrsky said in the Fiber Menace that fiber expands to 4-5 times its volume, Maybe fat makes it get even bigger. If I eat fiber without much fat, my stools are the same size as they are on a zero-fiber diet.
“I’ve always wondered why you were eating a (quite) high fat diet, while advocating Ray Peats ideas. Are you planning to stay with Low Fat-Ray Peat-style? You could get really low on the PUFA-side with that kind of diet.”
Ray Peat doesn’t say you have to eat low fat or high-fat. He sees that both diets can work, esp for adults. Children would need more fat than adults, but it’s dumb to say that adults need to binge on fats to be healthy. Look at the 2 doctors who healed various chronic diseases with raw skim milk or non-fat dry milk mixed with fruits. That is proof enough that adults need little fat to achieve (or maintain) good health. Like Matt has said, you can cure tooth decay with a diet of (mainly) white rice and no refined sugar. Balance it with the right foods and you wouldn’t get any deficiencies (a few eggs or fish or liver or cheese maybe).
“Do you prefer those foods (tastewise) over fatty foods or are you totally indifferent?”
I’m indifferent. I can eat high-fat, low fat, etc. Like Matt said, you might have more hunger on low-fat high-carb, but it doesn’t mean you will gain weight or get chronic disease. You just eat more food, or eat more often. Natural foods have a difficult time causing the “diseases of civilization”, contrary to the ignorant dogma by people like Charles (who thinks you will get tooth decay if you eat less than 95% meat). Eating more fiber works better with low-fat, IMO, but I do limit grain fiber and avoid beans.
Chloe, although the sumo wrestler ate a low-fat diet by calories, they ate a lot more fat than normal Japanese people as well as protein and calories. Try eating just carbs with no fat or animal protein and see if you gain weight. Dr. Charles Porter and Bernarr Macfadden use non-fat raw milk and dry milk with fruit to cure chronic disease, achieve weight loss in obese people, weight gain in underweight people, etc. Gaining weight on skim milk would probably be impossible unless you also ate lots of junk carbs and junk fat with it, like most Americans who eat low fat diets do. For example, they think it is OK to eat Snackwell’s cookies and Fig Newtons which contain bleached enriched white flour and refined sugar (or HFCS), and PUFAs or hydrogenated fats.
Ryan: “I used to frequent your Yahoo Group called “AV Skeptics,” where you were whole-heartedly endorsing a diet of coconut oil, raw meat, and chocolate. You’ve really done a 180, my friend!”
I was influenced by Peter on HyperLipid, and various other people who think it is great to eat 85% chocolate as a dietary staple. They’re sheep, IMO. Give it up a few months and try eating it and you see its drug-like effects. Coffee would be a lot healthier than chocolate probably. I don’t consume any caffeine now and it is quite an improvement as Matt has noted.
“Just because you have a healthy metabolism now doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have one if you continue a high-carb diet. And it doesn’t mean that your kids (if you choose to have any in the future) will either.”
And it doesn’t mean that I won’t or that they won’t, either. So what? I shouldn’t eat carbs because some diet gurus claim it will cause health problems? Yeah, I’m really convinced by Charles’s arguments that you have to eat 95% meat to prevent tooth decay, even though credible people have observed that a diet of white rice will prevent tooth decay.
“If an obese person were to try what you’re doing, they might suffer for it.”
Or, they might improve their metabolism, body so they can thrive on a more varied diet. Better to try to fix a problem by tackling it head-on than hiding from it. The analogy I use is that nobody cured a fear of heights by avoiding high places. Or insert any other phobia. Carbs don’t cause obesity and anybody who says they do needs to do more reading. The obesity epidemic results from a high-everything diet, esp the mix of refined sugar, any kind of flour (white or not), any highly unsaturated vegetable oil, etc. It would be hard to get fat eating dry sugar from the bag, apart from other food. That is what people ignore. Fat people eat foods like doughnuts, cookies, pies and cakes, potato chips, ice cream, etc. Those are high-fat and high-carb. High sugar, high starch, high PUFA, high trans fat – high everything bad, in short.
my point with sumo wrestlers was, do you think they’d be as heavy if their diet was more rich in fat and less so carbohydrates- percent wise- even if they are eating more then normal of the regular people
I’m not trying to make a point or anything that “carbs are bad” but perhaps it’s easier to overeat them with some fat and gain weight on same calorie count then it is to eat a tub of lard with some carbs and gain weight. Like, 5000 of carbs (including a percentage of fat) versus 5000 of fats (including a percentage of carbs) — But overall, yeah, they probably wouldn’t gain weight as much weight as they do on either if they restricted it heavily to one nutrient group. I’m just saying they’re might be a difference if they were to eat a ton but get most of their calories derived from fat. They might end up being more muscular and less fat.
The sumo wrestlers do a lot of things to slow down their metabolism, based on the things I've read. They eat most of their food late in the day. They exercise with no food, take naps after eating to store more fat. They eat socially, which makes them eat more due to distration. I think they drink beer too. Combining alcohol & all those other things they do puts them into fat storage mode.
But what if they ate like Art DeVany (no grains, no beer, no beans, and so on)? I think the results speak loud and clear. Art DeVany skips meals randomly and he exercises on an empty stomach, but has no trouble maintaining his weight since he eats a near-paleo diet and does lots of short intense exercise. There's more to obesity than carbs and anyone saying you can't eat a high-carb diet and stay thin effortlessly is wrong. It depends on what type of carbs you're eating and many other factors, of course. But hey, it's easier to just say "carbs make you fat" (even though it's wrong).
Bruce said: “Carbs don’t cause obesity and anybody who says they do needs to do more reading.”
Maybe. I’m not a devout follower of low-carb. I don’t believe that starch is the devil. I think for myself and eat white rice as my carb, as this feels best to me. My diet is more along the lines of the high-fat Polish Optimal Diet.
I believe that certain carbs are problematic, while others are harmless as part of a diet that includes animal foods. A very harmful carb, in my opinion, is fructose, due to its effect on triglycerides. Starches are the safest carbs, due to their lack of fructose (corn being the exception) and breaking down to glucose in the body, as opposed to the liver having to deal with fructose.
Corn-eating Native American tribes didn’t have the greatest teeth. Nor did those that subsisted off of a significant amount of wild fruits. Fructose is the problem, I think.
Bruce said: “Or, they might improve their metabolism, body so they can thrive on a more varied diet. Better to try to fix a problem by tackling it head-on than hiding from it.”
I agree with the idea of this. The application, however, may not see positive results. Metabolism is a very important aspect of weight gain, as you noted about the Sumos eating habits. Some people have very disturbed metabolisms, though. Can this truly be addressed through an increase in food? It would be nice. I have heard of poeple losing weight after revving up their metabolism through whatever means — herbal supplements, hormonal manipulation, etc. There is definitely more to it than diet alone.
All that being said, I enjoy a low-carb (70 grams) high-fat diet, as it is more satisfying and keeps my moods and blood sugar stable, which is nice. Not to mention a healthy body composition — muscles without lifting weights or exercising.
Ryan: “A very harmful carb, in my opinion, is fructose, due to its effect on triglycerides. Starches are the safest carbs, due to their lack of fructose (corn being the exception) and breaking down to glucose in the body, as opposed to the liver having to deal with fructose.”
Like Matt, I disagree that unrefined and non-granulated fructose would have these harmful effects, regardless what effects it may have on a person’s triglycerides. Those are just a marker of heart disease risk, not a cause of heart diseaese. You can eat sugar cane or sugar beets all of the day with no tooth decay. The same is not true for refined sucrose, granulated fructose, high fructse corn syrup, etc. As T.L. Cleave and others have observed, you can’t compare refined carbs to root vegetables, fruit, honey, potatoes, and fresh unbroken whole grains.
“Corn-eating Native American tribes didn’t have the greatest teeth. Nor did those that subsisted off of a significant amount of wild fruits. Fructose is the problem, I think.”
A glass of orange juice is not the same as a glass of Coke or Pepsi. I developed tooth decay from sipping soft drinks in college, and eating other refined junk. Prior to that, I had zero cavitise on a diet of milk, orange juice, beef, white rice, butter, potatoes, carrots, beets, liver, lean chicken, fish, etc. I never brushed my teeth except with water most of my life. I was thin no matter what I ate macronutrient-wise until I started eating lots of sugar, HFCS, acidic soft drinks, powdered grains, etc.
Also, here is a good study I have cited before, which SHOWS that the effects of honey are totally different than refined glucose mixed with fructose. The effects of honey on triglycerides and oxidative stress are similar to those of starch & these studies probably used heated and strained honey. I suspect that unheated honey would have an even better effect.
Substituting Honey for Refined Carbohydrates Protects Rats from Hypertriglyceridemic and Prooxidative Effects of Fructose
Bottom line: you can’t compare unrefined carbs to refined ones, because they have totally opposite effects.
Bruce, I agree that honey is different than HFCS. And I agree that unrefined carbs are different than refined carbs. However, I stil don't believe these "whole foods" are all that great for human beings besides being eaten in moderation with adequate animal foods. Animal foods offer far more health benefits & vitamins & minerals than plant foods. Honey is basically a sweetener with some vitamins and anitoxidants thrown in — a person couldn't live off of honey, though.
If you look closely at the study you posted, you'll see an interesting tidbit. TABLE 3 shows that the rats fed the STARCH had the best overall numbers. Note how the Triglycerides/Vitamin E ratio are significantly greater in that group than the honey-eaters.
If anything, the conclusion of this study should state that STARCH is the least harmful of the carbs tested. But it seems that these folks are trying to show that honey really isn't "all that bad."
Honey, although better than fructose alone or HFCS, still provides very little in the way of health benefits, in my opinion. You'll have to prove your case more conclusively, sir! :-)
I find it interesting that bears are the only other known species to have tooth decay – bears that eat honey that is (and not in captivity). I wonder if this is because they are eating it alone without anything to properly balance out it's effects. But after looking into it – it says bears don't just eat the honey – they also eat the bees n their little larvaes. Maybe that's not enough. Or the fact that they are an entirely different species all together, and therefor require different needs. Just wondering why the ones who eat honey might get tooth decay. Then again they are an entirely different species, but it's still interesting no doubt.
http://www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlife_news.view_article&articles_id=371
Just saw Matt’s commment: “What Bruce and I strive to get to the bottom of, is that if carbohydrate consumption makes you gain weight, then fixing that metabolic disorder is the ultimate triumph in comparison to the other route – avoiding them. The ultimate goal in human health science (or whatever ya wanna call it) is fixing problems, not avoiding them.”
That’s awesome! You guys are really changing my perception of what it means to “eat healthy.” I completely agree with the above statement. I give presentations on “primitive nutrition” at various venues, and you all are giving me great addendums to some of the material I present.
My only detraction: animal fats/proteins are entirely necessary and will provide better health than a whole-foods, carb-based diet. These foods build and repair the body, while vegetable foods seem to be more like medicine. Not to mention the growing body of research on the benefits of the fat-soluble vitamins found only in animal fats. Therefore, I disagree with the fundamental notion of “eat whatever whole foods you want as long as you have a healthy metabolism.” A healthy metabolism/hormonal balance will not save a person from inadequate animal fats/proteins, IMO. In fact, I believe that without adequate animal foods, hormonal imbalances occur. Ever hear of a vegan with a raging libido?
And, yes, maybe a fruitarian/vegan/raw diet is beneficial in the short term as a cleansing diet. Maybe. But I believe we should never devalue the importance of a rebuilding diet of animal foods for long-term health. Lack of animal foods is precisely why several cultures, such as the Mayans, Egyptians, and Amerindian corn-eaters display dental disease and bone wasting.
Chloe: Interesting stuff about the bears and tooth decay. I wonder if the honey they eat is in its unheated, raw state? Perhaps it was filtered and processed, and that’s why it lead to tooth decay! :-) (Poking a little fun at Bruce here — no harm meant, buddy!)
Diet is infinitely complex. I don’t feel you can blame cavities on one factor. It is a combination of things. Bears eat a lot of PUFAs probably. I think that will make you more vulnerable to cavities if you eat sugars, even natural ones. White flour will also make you more vulnerable to cavities than sugar by itself with no PUFAs. I got cavities on the Primal Diet but I was eating lots of PUFAs (nuts and salmon and eggs and pork and liver). My teeth are fine if I eat orange juice and milk that are low in PUFAs (about 1% of calories if you average them together or 0.2% if you drink skim milk. I have not brushed my teeth for most of my life, so there is nothing to protect me if I eat a bad diet. My immunity to cavities and the fact my teeth are clean even without brushing them proves that cavities are a lot more complex than blaming sugars or anything like that. I blame sugars mixed with PUFAs and/or grains, esp the white flour, which is uniquely bad.
Ryan: "Bruce, I agree that honey is different than HFCS. And I agree that unrefined carbs are different than refined carbs. However, I stil don't believe these "whole foods" are all that great for human beings besides being eaten in moderation with adequate animal foods."
Why? Where is the evidence that isolates all variables and proves that honey is a bad food? Where is the evidence that you need to eat large amounts of animal food and eat plant foods in moderation? There are many groups that thrived eating lots of plant foods and little animal food. I think it's more complex than saying you have to eat natural carbs in moderation, but you should binge on animal foods and fats. That stupid advice fails for many people and degrades their health. We are not all meant to eat like Matt or AV or Eades or JK or any other guru.
"Animal foods offer far more health benefits & vitamins & minerals than plant foods. Honey is basically a sweetener with some vitamins and anitoxidants thrown in — a person couldn't live off of honey, though."
Who said people could live on honey with no other food? That is a straw man. Lots of evidence shows that unheated honey is able to cure diseases like diabetes, and heal people. Many doctors used it in the past, but now the dogma of macronutrient ratios rules the land. Blaming honey for any modern problems is absurd, esp if it is not unheated honey or comb hnoey that is the least processed.
"If you look closely at the study you posted, you'll see an interesting tidbit. TABLE 3 shows that the rats fed the STARCH had the best overall numbers. Note how the Triglycerides/Vitamin E ratio are significantly greater in that group than the honey-eaters."
There's no proof that high triglycerides are harmful, except in people eating SAD or a similar diet. The Kitavans probably have high triglycerides and low HDL, and small dense LDL, but have "undetectable" levels of heart disease. You can't judge natural foods based on refined foods. It is not the same at all. Chris Masterjohn has a lot of good articles about what is really causing heart disease and he says there is no mechanism for triglycerides causing heart disease. It's oxidation of LDL that causes heart disease and many factors influence that. You can have the Pattern B (small dense) LDL and no heart disease if you don't eat white flour and sugar and high-PUFA oils.
Plus, as I've pointed out, they probably used processed honey, which is not much better than refined sugar. Nutrients are removed from it, so how can you say that unheated unstrained honey doesn't have enough nutrients? That would have to be determined case-by-case.
"Honey, although better than fructose alone or HFCS, still provides very little in the way of health benefits, in my opinion. You'll have to prove your case more conclusively, sir!"
Many doctors used raw honey successfully to cure diabetes, ulcers, internal and external wounds, chronic diseases, etc. AFAIK nobody used starches or grains by themselves to cure anybody of anything. People are healthy despite eating them, not because of them, IMO. Raw foods are widely reputed for healing. Where's the evidence that cooked starches have any benefits by themselves? People have got rid of cancer by eating 5-8 pounds of grapes a day. How many got rid of it by eating cooked meat, cooked potatoes, or white rice? Few that I know of. They're the exception, not the rule.
http://www.drbass.com/freedownload/files/drbassrecov.pdf
Ryan: "My only detraction: animal fats/proteins are entirely necessary and will provide better health than a whole-foods, carb-based diet. These foods build and repair the body, while vegetable foods seem to be more like medicine."
We don't need much fat or protein to be healthy, esp as adults. Human milk only had 6% protein, 39% carbs, and 55% fat. Doctors cured people of chronic disease (like tuberculosis) using raw skim milk or non-fat dry milk and fruit. Matt has mentioned that a diet of white rice can prevent tooth decay. (This was noted by observed by Robert McCarrison and T. L. Cleave.) White rice has virtually zilch nutrients, but it will prevent cavities in the absence of refined sugars, white flour, etc. So the issue is not whether a diet is high in nutrients or low in them, but rather how it alters nutrient balances in the body.
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/95/2
"Not to mention the growing body of research on the benefits of the fat-soluble vitamins found only in animal fats."
This research is flawed and inconclusive because most people are eating sugar and flour and polyunsaturated vegetable oil, all known to deplete vitamins. A person eating muscle meat with no fat soluble vitamins (like Charles Washington) may be protected from deficiencies, whereas someone eating doughnuts, cookies, and soft drinks would not be. Regardless, it is clear that we don't need much in the way of fat soluble vitamins, esp adults. The WAPF's mantra to "eat as much fat & fat soluble vitamins & fermented foods & and raw foods as possible" is naive and simple minded, as Matt has noted. There are ohher paths to healing.
"A healthy metabolism/hormonal balance will not save a person from inadequate animal fats/proteins, IMO. In fact, I believe that without adequate animal foods, hormonal imbalances occur. Ever hear of a vegan with a raging libido?"
The Kitavans do just fine on 69% carbs, 10% protein, 21% fat. Their diet is 90% vegan. As I said, we don't need lots of fat-soluble vitamins to be healthy. The idea that we do is just propaganda from diet gurus and commercial interests. If you ate skim milk and orange juice, you probably would have no deficiencies, as long as you didn't eat sugar, flour, or high PUFA oils. See the research of Dr. Charles S. Porter and Bernarr Macfadden. They used milk to cure various diseases and said that it was usually better to remove the fat. Porter said "the fat in cream has little or nothing to do with the cure of disease. Many of my best cases were cured on skim milk or separator milk." So much for the dogma that fat soluble vitamnis are panacea & we should guzzle cod liver oil to avoid cavities and health problems.
http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/resources/Porter.pdf
“Prove that they weren’t. I have seen all kinds of photos and video evidence that they DO squat for large parts of the day and are not sitting in chairs or on the ground.”
I came across this today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pro6X_Kc5wA
totally kickin’ back; 3-5 hours of work a day?
and look..they even recline in chairs
seems like lounging and hanging out to me
compare that to an average american working 8 hours a day
another interesting fact is that intensive agriculture is one of the most labor intensive food getting techniques – more so then horticulture, pastoralists or hunter/gathering. (factoring in technology may be a factor – but even modern pastoralists are driving jeeps around to herd their animals)