Not only am I coming out with a post on a provocative fun theory that I’ve been brain-sturbating on lately, I be droppin? Acronyms like nobody’s business. I mean MANIFEST? MANIFEST? I’d say ?I’m not making this up? to emphasize how stunned I am by my own cleverness, but the thing is? I did make that up! I actually paused to pound on my chest for a moment after doing so. Anyway, let’s get into this theory, which takes the Paleo mindset on nutrition a step further?
Human beings are the most heat-adapted mammal on earth. We have open pores. We sweat to cool ourselves from head to toe unlike most mammals. Other than Robin Williams and Teen Wolf, most humans have very little body hair. We have a hard time staying warm at cold temperatures, but we have the complete tool set for staying cool at warm temperatures. It’s what we were designed for. The only thick hair we have is on the top of our heads, keeping us cool under the hot sun like a Turban in the desert.
(Note Stiles is wearing a shirt appropriate for the optimal human climate – and yes, it’s in Spanish. Even funnier).
Humans obviously were intelligent enough to branch out from the ecosystem in which we were designed for ? a warm, non-seasonal climate akin to the climate in a place like Hawaii, the South Pacific, or the Equatorial regions of the world. We did so by killing the animals that were well-adapted to cold weather, and wearing their skin and fur on our own bodies.
But the token Paleo Man that hunted Wooly Mammoths and got in some hard sprints trying to run from Saber-Toothed Tigers (which would have resulted in a quick death and an abrupt exit from the gene pool) was secondary, not primary to the roots of the human template. We were able to adjust to other climates and other foods in the food chain of Northern climates somewhat, but we weren’t designed for those climates. Otherwise we?d be covered in thick fur that we could shave to live comfortably in warmer climates (no, I will not diverge at this point about Global Warming and increasing fashionableness of pubic shaving, but you know I could if I needed to).
Humans are adaptable, and homo sapiens had great health in many climates. Humans clearly were able to make many changes to better suit them for more inhospitable climates, such as the lightening of skin pigmentation at higher latitudes to allow for better vitamin D synthesis from sunlight coming in at weaker angles. We didn’t grow furry coats because we developed a system for addressing uncomfortable temperatures. We picked up weapons-making faster than we evolved to run down deer. In other words, our minds evolved faster than our bodies in many cases.
I’m not saying that eating food from the Tropics is healthy and eating the grains of Northern climates is deadly. There is no such evidence for such a claim, especially with the extensive documentation of early 20th century pioneers in nutrition and human health such as Robert McCarrison and Weston A. Price ? who saw that fantastic health could be achieved on an agrarian diet and lifestyle revolving around grains. If humans are well-nourished and avoid nutritionally-devoid food like white sugar, good health can be replicated time and time again.
But I am interested at peering into one of the most fundamental aspects of human design, and deciphering, if there is such a thing as an optimal diet and lifestyle for humans, what it might be.
So let’s examine the difference between the ideal ecosystem for a human being ? a climate that is non-seasonal.
The tropics are warm year-round. It is never cold. So the food chain of perpetually-warm areas is adapted to warmth, not cold. This equates to the food chain becoming ‘saturated? with heat-protective fats, whereas Northern climates become saturated with cold-protective fats.
This is why the most concentrated source of saturated fat on earth comes from tropical nuts and seeds ? coconuts and palm kernels. Because these must withstand hot temperatures, with no risk of freezing, they are maximally adapted to protecting themselves from excess heat damage. That means they employ the least heat and light-sensitive fat ? saturated fat, in the greatest abundance.
Nuts, seeds, grains, and other foods in higher latitudes have the opposite problem. They fall in the autumn, and have the chore of making it through cold winters without freezing so that they can propagate themselves in the spring. The type of fat that is the most liquid at cold temperatures, working like anti-freeze, is the exact type of fat found in the food chain of higher latitudes. This, of course, is polyunsaturated fat ? omega 6 and omega 3.
These foods, for the most part, are scarfed up by one of three types of creatures. The first are birds, who have adapted, metabolically, to eating polyunsaturated fat all year long as they fly around the globe seasonally to take advantage of that. Next are the ruminant animals of higher latitudes ? elk, deer, cows, bison, sheep. They have developed a system to convert polyunsaturated fat to saturated and monounsaturated fat so that the fatty acid composition of their tissues remains relatively constant no matter what the composition of their diet may be. Finally are those with a seasonal metabolism that do not convert polyunsaturated fat to other fatty acids and instead accumulate them in fat and tissue like humans do. These animals include many hibernators, and include nut, seed, and acorn-loving creatures like bears, squirrels, marmots, and other small mammals that go into a hypometabolic (low metabolism) state after gorging on omega 6. Like a nut or seed, this cold-protective fat serves a very important survival purpose.
According to Ray Peat, giving saturated fat instead to a creature that does not convert polyunsaturated fat to other fatty acids (like pigs or humans) seems to have the opposite effect. Instead of going into a low energy, low-metabolic state, pigs, humans, and other non-converters become hypermetabolic in response to a diet higher in saturated fat like that found in warmer climates where hairless creatures like us are more comfortable:
In the l940s, farmers attempted to use cheap coconut oil for fattening their animals, but they found that it made them lean, active and hungry? At the end of their lives, the animals’ obesity increased directly in proportion to the ratio of unsaturated oil to coconut oil in their diet, and was not related to the total amount of fat they had consumed? In the l930s, animals on a diet lacking the unsaturated fatty acids were found to be “hypermetabolic.” ? Ray Peat
The most liquid oil of all at cold temperatures is omega 3. Although omega 3 has the ability to mitigate some of the negative consequences of eating excessive omega 6 like that found in most nuts, seeds, grains, and oils from those substances ? it is tough to argue that omega 3 is a fatty acid meant for human consumption in large quantities, as it only exists in very large quantities in the Arctic where the human is least suited to be. Coldwater fish such as salmon and herring as well as the fat of seals is where the greatest abundance of omega 3 is found ? and where, in a cold climate, these fats do play an inherently beneficial role to the ecosystem and the organisms in it.
But make no mistake. For those that want to ?get primal? and get in touch with their primitive evolutionary roots, the diet to take you there is one that is:
1) High in carbohydrates ? the tropics are home to carbohydrate-rich plants 365 days per year. Although humans have failed to evolve to convert polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats, we do convert many of our carbohydrates to saturated fats. We’ve also managed to produce more salivary amylase (carbohydrate digestant substance) than any other creature. We are undeniably well-adjusted to eating a starch-rich diet. No wonder human breast milk is more carbohydrate-rich than even that of most herbivores. The staples of traditional tropical diets have typically been starchy root vegetables such as taro root (like a potato) and yams as seen amongst the Polynesians and the people of Kitava ? who use yams as a form of currency.
2) Low in polyunsaturated fat ? Polyunsaturated fat is not present except in small quantities in the tropics ? found in trace amounts in seafood and in fatty foods in very small amounts. This is even more important as the hot sun beats down on the unprotected skin of homo sapiens during the day in equatorial regions. Do you want to be out in the sun with heat and light-protective fat in your cells (saturated), or heat and light-sensitive fat in your cells (polyunsaturated)? Eating a low-PUFA diet is the ultimate sunscreen and anti-skin cancer approach. Just being warm is thought to increase saturated fat levels in the body fat.
But these 2 rules are not to be toyed with, especially when it comes to fructose. Fructose, found in greatest concentration in fruit, is only found in conjunction with polyunsaturated fat in seasonal climates for a very brief amount of time. Eating the two together 365 days per year like a typical modern human (Value meals, doughnuts, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Oreos, fries and coke, etc.) is a violation of nature. The “perfect nutritional storm.”
But hey, if you were well-nourished, you could probably still get away with it to some extent. If you are going to consume a high-fructose diet year-round, you better eat like the rest of the creatures that live where fruit grows 365 days per year ? extremely low-PUFA, with plenty of sunlight on your skin. Can vitamin D negate some of the negatives of a high-fructose diet?
Anyway, that’s all for this post. I hope you enjoyed the interesting concept that polyunsaturated fats are found in greatest abundance in places where it is sometimes cold or always cold ? whereas the human being is designed to live where it is always warm, and these fatty acids are practically non-existent where it is always warm.
Of course, you could contribute poor health, excess fat, and ravenous hunger to eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches in a cold climate too far North to synthesize vitamin D eight months per year because of all the gluten and carbohydrates if you like. That would make more sense to some. (THIS is what I’m referring to). But the only creatures that eat a ton of polyunsaturated fat and fructose together are hyperphagic, leptin-resistant bears in fat storage mode prior to hibernation. Maybe eating a pre-winter diet makes you feel like you’re perpetually needing to store up for hibernation. Interesting that the leading dietary suspects in the causation of leptin resistance are omega 6 and fructose.
And with that, here’s a new 180 Kitchen post on how to make some good low-PUFA cooking fat.
Even better, here is an unedited preview of my chapter on leptin for the new version of 180 Degree Metabolism due out in a couple weeks.
Matt,
This was a great post. This and the Paleo for population control have been my 2 favorites. I just recently spent a month on a tropical island eating tons of fruit and carbs, probably 80% of my calorie intake, and felt great. I also ate as much as I wanted, and got extremely lean without exercise.
Are you now saying that you think fructose is good because it would be available in fruit in tropical locations and that is what we were designed to consume? At least as long as you dont eat PUFAs.
That is one possible avenue I'm open to. But I still wouldn't say fructose is preferable to starch. The Kitavans don't use bananas as currency – they use yams. Polynesians ate WAY more taro than fruit. In fact, when you're well-fed, you don't need to overeat on fruit or even have the desire to. It's more of a nice, refreshing condiment to enjoy after a meal of starch, protein, and fat.
But if you were hypermetabolic, living in a warm climate, eating hardly any PUFA, synthesizing vitamin D 365 days per year – then the response to fructose may be totally different.
But as we've talked about, whether you're eating a lot of PUFA or not, it takes a long time to purify it out of your body. It might be best to wait until some of the PUFA clears out before eating much fructose. I still suspect that fructose can be very damaging to a body composed of PUFA-filled cells and tissue.
So what is the "best" (I would assume you favor lowest in fructose) sweetener to use when making desserts for special occasions- maple syrup, honey, Rapadura, dates?
Great post Matt.
Very similar things have been floating around my head as well. Though I have never considered it brain-sturbating, well at least not publicly.
I think the biggest "noticeable" difference when I increased my saturated fat intake was the lack of burning in the sun. Use to be a huge problem for me. To spend more than say 20-30 minutes in sun without burning was unheard of. Now 1-2 hours. Curious see what happens this summer, now that I'm am eating less fat and focused on keeping the n-6 way down.
Interesting that you mentioned how they preferred starch to fruit. When I was on the island I noticed that the locals didn't like to eat fruit much, even though it was abundant,cheap/free, and of the highest quality in the world. Many of them were a little fat, especially the women.
The westerners on the other hand who were there ate tons of fruit because it was so amazing. All of them lost weight at a very rapid pace, even though they were gorging on fruit constantly.
This would make sense with Ray Peats observation that fructose has a protective effect against obesity.
I was watching Anthony Bourdains show on the travel channel where he went ant ate a bunch of native foods in the philipines. One of the items consumed was a big ol' worm from insiude a mangrove tree. One thing he mentioned was that these worms were very high in omega 3 fatty acids. If this is the case for other tropical worms and bugs it throws some doubt on the theory that omega 3 consumption is very low in the tropics.
Nathan,
I have observed the same thing. I have been on a low PUFA diet for several years now, and my skin is much more resistant to sun burning now. I also use a lot of coconut oil on my skin which may help.
Well, this gives me hope, although very far in the future, as I was raised on margarine and spent the better part of my life eating lots of PUFAs (sorry, I still can't write PUFAs without laughing at how it sounds phonetically). I am a redhead and burn in a matter of minutes. I'm talking a 15-minute period, unprotected, under tropical sun actually blisters my skin.
So now I just need to change my bodyfat makeup and I'll be fine… Oy. If losing weight wasn't hard enough, now I have to worry about changing the makeup of the fat, too!
Alright, I might get hated for this, but I just can't let it go. I was considering the Paleo diet and opted to do an altered version of it back in January. After two weeks, I had lost zero weight at all and was unusually depressed. I began searching more, because that no carb/high fat diet should have worked right? As I was reading an article something finally hit me. The Paleo diet and a lot of similar ones are based on the theory of evolution, not design.
Yes, I'm one of those people that believes in creation. But, look at what you said about the ideal environment for humans is a warm place, eating the fruit (coconuts etc.) of the area. For anyone who has read Genesis, you understand that man lived in a paradise. Even after the fall of man, he was told to till the soil and eat the fruit of the land. I believe that everything humans needed was available to them as far as food. Adam was over 900 years old before he died!
"And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food."
"…Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground…"
I just wanted to throw the idea out there. I am certainly a huge fan of meat and eggs etc. and later God did specifically tell Noah to eat meat. I am just pointing out that our bodies are able to handle starches and carbohydrates. Based on creation that is.
Anyways, you can delete this if you want Matt.
Jessica
What a fascinating post! I've been trying to figure out – from an experiential point of view – what my ancestors ate.
I live at altitude, in northern New Mexico, and I can tell you that here in the dead of winter (hey, spring doesn't hit here for a few more weeks), it's meat that you catch… or nothing at all. I've been engaging in a hunt-and-gather my own food challenge for a few weeks with two and a half more months to go.
If I lived in the tropics, would fruit tempt me? Would I eat only fruit as it is colorful, easy to pick, and easy to find? Or would I dig for those tubers? Honestly, I have no idea. What's "natural" anyway?
I wonder if my current self-imposed diet of what I can catch and forage will harm me. I am eating virtually no carbs thanks to the blanket of snow covering the land. If the idea diet for humans includes a lot of carbs, what did we evolve to eat when it's winter?
Just thinking out loud… thanks for the truly interesting post.
If you eat a low pufa diet with lots of fructose but you live in the cold north, you're not going to do well b/c of a lack of Vit D? What do you suggest for those living in cold climates who want to eat this way?
In relation to – I think it was JT – who spoke of the dietary wisdom of Ayurveda, I concur. Personally I have found much relevant material in Traditional Chinese Medicine, in particular to this post, the thermal energy of food.
Most fruit is cooling to the body. For overheated systems, it can be used to cool down. However, for others with a tendency to coolness (which is inline with Matts lower body temperature notion), fruit cools the body even further, often leading to a gorging of more of it, further exacerbating cool symptoms.
Raw salads also have this same effect. For some people no problem but for others, problematic.
There is much to be learned from some of these ancient wisdoms, which are the clmination of hundreds and hundreds of years of observational practice.
Budawang.
this post was so frikin thought provoking i am at a loss of what the hell to say! Good summary for such a broad topic.
Living in the south, we get "cold" about 3 months a year and usually the sun is shining already(like today) in the mid to upper 70's.
according to the latitudinal attitude presented i should be craving saturated fat and starch? that's where i am confused. that's 2 opposite ends of the food spectrum. taro with coconut oil? the heart scan blog just had a post about the bad response to starch + sat fat(butter)…
Matt,
Hot off the press homie (study on HFCS and INCREASED weight gain) :
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/
But some of us knew this a while ago……..
i found this interesting, except the meat staples as chicken and pork which are both high in omega 6?
"In the warmest regions of the world, which are also characterized in general by excess of wetness, live the rice-eating peoples. Their diet is in the main vegetarian and consists of rice as the principal cereal, with additions of soy beans, various tubers and root vegetables, and large amounts of leafy vegetables of many kinds. . . . The leaf of the plant is superior to the seed, tuber, root or fruit in its dietary properties. In fact, the edible leaf is in itself complete from the standpoint of its dietary principles. . . . The importance of the leafy type of vegetable in the diet of the rice-eating peoples cannot be overestimated. Because of the density of population, milk-producing animals are not kept in the rice-eating regions. . . [The] only food of animal origin is eggs, poultry and pork, . . . but in some places considerable amounts of fish are available. People on such a dietary regimen, are very successful in their physical development and compare . . . with the best specimens of the human race. "
OK, where's that updated list of the PUFA levels in foods? I'm driving myself nuts [har har] googling for the info. There's a lot of bad/contradictory info out there!
@Jessica:
I believe you are wandering off into a very dangerous terrain there. You are mixing up religion with science. Now don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being Christian and certainly you can believe in an allmighty creator if you wish, there's absolutely nothing that speaks against it, but you can't really mess with evolution.
Saying that there is no such thing as evolution to me is a sign of (un)conscious ignorance. This is absolutely NOT supposed to be an insult or anything and I still respect what you said, but denying evolution is just messing with hard facts. You certainly have your reasons to not believe in evolution, but I really urge you to, if necessary, do a little research about that.
I don't wanna get into a religious debate here, but biology happens to be one of the things I'm very interested in and thus I really can't stand it when people deny evolution, just as I can't stand it when people consider them vastly superoir to other animals or other beings or do not even think of themselves as animals.
Of course you could also argue that all those "facts" about evolution could just be placed on this planet to deceive us (why would God want to deceive us anyways?) or that we cannot even know what's true and what's not, but this is on the borderline to become a philosophical question and all I'm asking for here is some common sense.
On a side note: The paleo diet did some bad things to me as well, but I think there are other reasons to why it doesn't work. 1)Many people in the paleo scene are just "blinded by science" as Matt once put it. Because insulin seems to be such a bad thing, most paleo peeps condemn all high-GI foods like potatoes while fully being aware of the fact that hunter-gatherers ate tubers. 2) basing a diet on what humans may have eaten some thousand years ago is kinda skechy, since we do not know enough about it yet and besides that we can not factor in how our genetics may have changed since then (there are theories out there, that the dawn of agriculture actually accelarated evolution).
Budawang,
You are right, the ayurvedic and TCM dietary recommendations are very important. It is true that some foods may be good for some people and bad for others depending on their condition. Raw fruits have a cooling effect, and they wouldn't be good for someone in a cold climate, but we can cook the fruits to change its properties and heat it up. I can tolerate fresh fruits in tropical locations, but cannot tolerate the same fruits when I am in a cold climate. That is why use unrefined sugar instead of fruits, and this has worked out very well for me.
Jessica,
Interesting observation. The first time I read Ray Peats account of the optimal human diet being one that comes from the tropics, I thought it was very reminiscent of the Eden account.
Malpaz,
I eat saturated fat and starch (rice and Ghee) 4 times a day every day, and have only found it beneficial. This is also recommended by Ayurveda as being healthy. THe problems will come when you ONLY have starch and fat (rice and butter) which could induce nutrient deficiencies.
@malpaz:
Could you link me that heartscan blog article? Couldn't find it (yet).
Also keep in mind that the diet of the Kitavans for example probably was more "moderate" fat than it was "high" fat.
Madmuhh,
I know you are young and have strong emotional attachments to your beliefs, but be careful of being intolerant towards others who have different beliefs than you. You will find that most of the things you are certain about now, will be wrong when you are older. This is the nature of science, and why it makes progress, by constantly disproving and modifying old theories that were regarded as facts. I personally do believe in evolution, but do not think it has to necessarily contradict a creation account, and don't think people are ignorant just because they have a different view. Try being a skeptic about everything, including the conventional view, this is the only way to have a scientific approach to knowledge and life.
The book Lights Out, Sleep Sugar and Survival explores many of these ideas. It's fascinating.
Gazelle,
You shouldn't need a complete list of foods to avoid PUFA. Just avoid all fats coming from plants except for coconut, palm, and cocoa. From animals i would avoid fat from fish, chicken, and pork. If you really want to eat a low PUFA diet, then you will need to eat a fairly low fat diet mostly.
JT,
You seem to have been insulted by Madmudd, who claims that he knows that evolution is true for certain. He also seems to insult those who hold creationist or those who hold evolution and creationism as compatible.
But hardcore evolutionists strongly hold their beliefs to be true, and have every right to strongly believe that they're certain. Yes, creationists and religious people will see evolutionists as arrogant because of this, but they have every right to believe that their opponents are certainly wrong.
But you should realize that the hardcore evolutionists do NOT necessary think that creationists are less intelligent then them. Otherwise, they won't be debating with them.
You won't say that you "personally" know that the earth is not flat, won't you? You know for certain that the earth isn't flat. But you are different towards evolution. You claim that you "personally" believe in evolution, thus implying that you are not very certain if it's true.
It has more to do with how you present your beliefs to others, rather than how certain you think your beliefs are. People who challenge other's beliefs appear to attack or insult them, when this isn't the case at all.
I know you might be trying to defend the Jessica from being insulted by Madmudd, but you appeared to insulted all hardcore evolutionists in doing so. They don't want to compromise their beliefs to appear more "tolerant" to others. Some people may indeed doubt your "skepticism" and your agnostic position on evolution and creationism.
That being said, I'm not going to debate evolution here, nor I'm interested.
ya Madmuh, be more open minded! Just like JT is (not) lol
Does evolution extend beyond the body? I guess that's the question, eh? We may not have hair, but we have the intellect to clothe ourselves. Is that part of our evolution? When we use our intellect to craft a tool for hunting, can that be considered an evolutionary point?
Or are we simply what we are in a vacuum, naked, sealed from our intellect and environment, the baby in 2001, floating in space? We're still in the jungle? Is that what you're saying?
Lucky-
I'm basically saying that humans are designed a certain way. They are highly adaptable – and you are probably right to be attempting to live in harmony with the region you live in (obeying nature), but our basic template is unchanged. We are warm weather creatures that have found tricks to overcome that limitation. That's great and all, but it didn't change our makeup.
T.S. Wiley's book is an interesting read. In a like manner, she has a braingasm over changes in light exposure being in disharmony with carbohydrate availability and what not. Valid points, and sleep is important – as is light exposure to our circadian rhythms, but I don't think she is right. It's certainly written in the same manner as this post though. Exploring an interesting theory.
The tropics are not totally devoid of PUFA. The Kitavans eat 2% of their calories as PUFA – roughly 1.5 grams omega 6 and 3 grams omega 3 per day. Also, the pork of the traditional Polynesians was coconut-fed, not corn and soy fed like today's pork. This makes a difference in fatty acid composition as pigs have a similar physiology to humans.
And yes, traditional healing modalities of Eastern medicine such as Ayurveda or Chinese medicine are more advanced than current mainstream beliefs. They understand the concept of being out of balance and taking steps to counterbalance those imbalances rather than simple mindedly putting foods into a healthy and unhealthy category. But I'd like to think I (we) can take this mindset with current research and improve upon it. Those ancient healing arts also were not developed to deal with some of the extreme imbalances of modern man caused by extreme refined sugar and polyunsaturated fat ingestion.
(I am now logged, this is Jessica who said the controversial thing about creation up there in the middle of the comments)
I agree, what I said can certainly be viewed as dangerous. I am definitely NOT trying to start anything negative here at all. I am delighted to be here!
However, when you think about it, science is basically the pursuit of truth- uncovering answers. Sometimes it's necessary to look beyond what we would normally consider right to find what we're looking for, or in other words, to have an open mind. I know I've had to do that a lot and it can be a little scary.
That's all I was doing, just trying to give a different perspective in hopes that it might possibly shed some light on the subject. It did for me.
Honestly, I've been seeking and searching for a looooooong time.(7 years seems long to me) I've been praying for guidance, and I would get little bits and pieces of light and understanding, and finally I was led here, where I finally got it! I am so thankful to Matt for all his work and research- it's all clicking together for me! BIG HUGE THANK YOU!!
Anyways, that's all.
Organism,
The reason I addressed Madmuhh was because he reminded me of myself at that age. I have now had enough experience to see most of the things I "knew" for certain were wrong. I am sure that in another 20 years, I will have changed on many things again. People can hold beliefs strongly if they like, and I don't think they (evolutionists or creationists) should compromise their beliefs as long as it is based on reason, and they make a strong attempt to disprove their current beliefs. I just have a problem when they try to silence others with different opinions. If some fundamentalist would have attacked Madmuhh for having his "dangerous" belief in evolution and called him ignorant I would have responded to them the same way. I never said I was agnostic towards evolution, I said I believe it, but the reason why is because it is currently intellectually fashionable, not because I have a PHD in Paleontology. I could care less really which position is true as it doesn't matter to me either way. I am not going to discuss this anymore on this blog.
Mike, I think those worms would probably have less than a gram of fat each, so even if they are high in omega 3, it would not be a lot. Plus, they are not easy food, so they are probably not eaten that much.
I also want to say that people who live in the Pacific islands are now starting to get fat because just like here their saturated fat and other natural foods are being replaced with vegetable oils and HFCS. Kiribati and Samoa have more fat people than the United States.
I also want to say that I suspect that fructose in fruit is not bad at all and that HFCS is not bad because of the fructose, but rather because it comes from genetically modified corn, which also contains a huge toxic load. I mean, corn was genetically modified to fatten up cattle so now the humans that eat this same corn are being fattened up too. I really wonder if we ate HFCS from organic, non GM corn, if it would have the same effect. Also, soybeans are GM to fatten up live stock also and soy is in everything. I just did a speech for class on soy and I went to the grocery store to find items that contained some form of soy and just about everything I picked up had soy in at least one or two forms. People are eating the same things fed to animals to make them fat, so is it any wonder we are getting fat too.
Sugar, This is one view I have done a complete 180 on. Back in my low carb/paleo days I would rant to others on the dangers of sugars! But, now i think Ray Peat might be right, that we are designed to eat a tropical diet with more fructose in it. Since most of the fruit one can buy in american grocery stores is so horrible, I have been using sugar instead of fruit.
Has anyone but myself experimented with adding sucrose to the diet? I have been adding 100 grams of unrefined sugar (rapadura/sucanat) to my Kool-Aid with protein everyday. This has replaced one of my starch meals. I have not noticed any negative consequences since doing this, and i have not gained any fat. Has anyone else noticed a protective or beneficial effect from sugar like Peat claims?
Thanks for the great read Matt.
Regarding what you said here:
"…whether you're eating a lot of PUFA or not, it takes a long time to purify it out of your body. It might be best to wait until some of the PUFA clears out before eating much fructose. I still suspect that fructose can be very damaging to a body composed of PUFA-filled cells and tissue."
How would you go about clearing PUFA's from your body and tissues? By training your body to more efficiently utilize fat as energy?
woops, how'd i do that?
i think that electricity and petroleum use has altered the way we experience the environment.
i bet modern humans up north often experience their environment as season-less because most time is spent indoors year round in a temp controlled building.
and i'm really excited to see this all get tied together! great job matt :)
JT.
I did Peat's diet for around 6 weeks and gave up . The juice and sugar had me bouncing off the wall and crying like a baby.
Plus my sleep got really messed up..
finally got myself back to a more balanced way and much better sleep by eating meat and potatoes with a little bit of fruit here and there. In fact I'm kinda stoked because recently I have been able to eat vegetable salads with no bloating which is something I haven't been able to do for many years..
Sleep has really got back to feeling deep ad restful and am managing to have 7-8 hours a night without having to get up and pee which is a first or around 4 years…
When people have adrenal problems they tend towards blood sugar issues. Amazingly enough I was also found to be anemic even though i eat plenty of meat…
Pip, interesting feedback. I had the same problems as well when I first tried Peat's diet in the past. I had very severe adrenal insufficiency that hadn't been diagnosed yet. The sugars will relax the adrenal glands even more, so this can be a problems for someone who has low cortisol levels already. I did Schwarzbein type of diet for about a year and I also developed an intense high volume exercise routine and now I seem to tolerate sugars fine. I also had a good Ayurvedic doc that gave me some treatments and helped me with the adrenal problems. I think anyone that has adrenal insufficiency will have a problem with sugars until they address this issue.
Somebody commented on Polynesians getting fatter. As we moved to Hawaii almost a year ago, I can agree on that. Morbid obesity and diabetes run rampant, and that's because they are NOT eating their natural diet (or any natural diet!). They subsist on white rice, white carbs, SUGAR like crazy, and SPAM. On top of which, many local companies were at least using palm oil for cooking, but in the last few years they've all been pressured into using your typical crap oils, so I predict further health problems.
So, this post is timely to me, because, living in Hawaii, well… food is really expensive. I mean, really, really, really expensive. Think $1500 a month for a family of five. Even local farmer's market food. Unless of course, we want to eat Spam… Our food budget is exceeding our paycheck, but I refuse to compromise with 3 growing kids and me trying to reverse all kinds of problems from a life of SAD eating and envirotoxins (I worked in an organic lab… I'm toxic as hell).
The problem is… we can find bananas and mangoes and fruit for free, helping our food budget. We have over 100 lbs of bananas in the car port right now! But I cut out fruit and sugars (fructose)a few months ago, and I don't have room for 100 lbs of bananas in the freezer (hubby still gets a huge rush in bringing home free food; if only I could get him to hunt). So what to do? Can we eat them?
I really want to do the HED thing, because metabolism and thyroid are definitely issues, but boy, how can we afford more food? (Raw milk, being illegal, is up to $20 a gallon, to give you an idea!). I feel like I'm depriving my kids, they're always, always saying they're hungry. They eat lots of good fat, lots of grass-fed beef and tuna, some starchy carbs and very limited grains, lot of veggies, and very limited fruit, so I suspect it's more that they don't like being deprived of all the crap they watch being consumed around them, it causes them to psychologically be hungry.
We went lowish-carb for a couple weeks to try resolve kids' problems like rashes and allergies that I thought might be candida-related, but still no luck. Now we're eating yams and poi and lentils and such. But they're still hungry, and still rashy.
We don't eat a lot of omega-6 except for nuts and avocados, but maybe those need to go too.
What to do? I guess I'm frustrated because I believe food is medicine, but there is so much conflicting advice out there. I'm sick and tired of us being sick and tired and I want to fix it NOW! And I know this is quite rambling (brain fog…).
Hmm… what was my question? Oh yeah, we're tropical, we eat tons of coconut oil, can we eat tropical fruit? And how can I fill my kids up? And how can I reduce our food costs (I swear I know all the tricks already…) other than going to conventional food?
BTW, I love the blog, thanks for doing all this research! I just found it and have spent all my free (and not so free) time trying to read everything on it!
Oh, goddammit. This is exactly what I did NOT want to achieve.
JT: I absolutely see your point and I have made that experience of being wrong despite thinking that I was totally right aswell. I think our stories are very similiar anyways and thus I absolutely see where you're coming from and definitely believe that in many aspects you are "a step further" and wiser than me. I certainly still have room to grow (mentally and physically^^).
I also happen to be interested in philosophy to some degree and as I already hinted, there certainly is no absolute truth and even if there was humans wouldn't even be capable of actualy grasping it.
I may have been a little bit harsh, I admit that. It never was my intention to insult anyone and I did state that from the very beginning. However I still think that using the word "ignorant" was appropiate. This might also be a semantics issue here, English is not my first language and language is always subjected to interpretation. If you look up "ignorant" at wikipedia, you'll find: "Ignorance is where someone or something is uninformed. This should not be confused with being unintelligent, as one's level of intelligence and level of education or general awareness are not the same" That is very close to what I meant and not really an insult imo.
As I said there is no absolute truth anyways, but I think when talking about nutrition we still have to remain in the realm of what is generally accepted as science. There certainly are reasons to not believe in evolution, but I think that those reasons should not be based on a religious belief. I think the further our knowledge progresses the more and more clear it becomes that there is some kind of "higher power" in one way or another and there is absolutely nothing wrong with believing that our world has been created, but I still do not think it is appropriate to try to refute something that barely has the status of a "theory" anymore with religious arguments. There probably are some justified reasons to be sceptical of evolution, but that scepticism has to be backed up in a non-religious, science-based way.
Whatever, this has gone way too far already anyways. I hope I made my point clear here. If you still think there is something to debate about, you can always shoot me a mail (madMUHHH@gmx.net). If you think that this topic can be laid to rest now and it is clear that I did not want to insult anyone, than please state so, so I know that my point has got across and then let's get back to some on-topic discussion.
@JT: What exactly do you mean, when you say most fruit from American grocery stores is horrible. Do you mean the taste?
@Lorelei: I think if you or your kids are really hungry than it certainly would be much better to eat bananas then to eat nothing. Starvation (whether it's mild or severe) is certainly not what we are trying to achieve here and you could certainly argue whether starch is better than fructose or not, but if you really can't get any other food or it's too expensive, why not eat what nature gave you. After all bananas are a natural food, you do live in a tropical region (so fructose probably will be less harmful) and bananas are rather starchy anyways as far as I'm concerned, could be wrong there though.
That's my take on it.
Matt,
Not to burst your bubble, but isn't all seafood high in omega 3? Islanders always consume high amounts of seafood. I think all fish is, and I looked up another main staple– crabs– on nutritiondata and it says 269 mg omega 3 (and no omega 6?). Perhaps Ray Peat is wrong and only omega 6 is harmful (though, based on the chemistry, I don't see why omega 3s would not be harmful for the same reasons!).
Also, Ray Peat has some good points about tryptophan, cysteine, and phytoestrogens lowering metabolism. I know you're on a leptin high, but have you considered excessive muscle meat and legumes as having a role in obesity? Could it be a problem that we just don't make broth anymore (being that gelatin, aka collegen is devoid of those amino acids)?
Sadly, I'd have to agree that it's impossible to pin any one thing for our problems today, and it might just be due to an ambiguous "perfect storm" of factors. Perhaps, as you say, lack of vitamin D (as well as vitamin A) could weaken our response ability as well. (Sigh… this was all so much easier when it was just insulin=bad!!)
Anonymous said…
So what is the "best" (I would assume you favor lowest in fructose) sweetener to use when making desserts for special occasions?
Dextrose, which is the powder form of pure glucose. Made from corn. Buy in a vitamin shop or something. Less sweet than sugar- put more in. (Of course, how natural is that?)
JT said…
…I also use a lot of coconut oil on my skin which may help.
Yeah Barry Groves said that when he was in Singapore this is what he and the natives did, (actually it was a well-mixed solution of coconut oil and vinegar), and they spent all day in the sun with little on and never got sunburned.
Vida said…
…HFCS is not bad because of the fructose, but rather because it comes from genetically modified corn, which also contains a huge toxic load.
HFCS is highly refined; I'm sure whatever mutated proteins from GMO are not in it, and maybe not pesticides either, as they are attracted to fats. There was the recent finding of mercury in some HFCS products, due to the holding tanks they keep it in… but anyways, obesity has been classically just as linked with sugar, which had none of that.
An update: I just listened to the recent interview with Ray Peat where he says the tropical fish have more monounsaturated fats than the PUFAs. But still, doesn't seafood still have a lot? More than the 1% you recommend?
Btw, I saw your comment on the WAPF reference to this interview (Man, you are EVERYWHERE… do you sleep??). Very elegant comment, but does William Lands really advise only 1% PUFA? I see he has a book called "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health"… sounds like more than 1%.
"Weston A. Price ? who saw that fantastic health could be achieved on an agrarian diet and lifestyle revolving around grains."
Matt that's not true. Price never stated that grains were responsible for health. He said animal fats from grass fed animals is what made people health, those vitamins found in milk, butter, fish, eggs.
JT-
i've been eating sugars, unrefined sugar with coffee, milk, orange juice, instead of starch for breakfast and dinner for the past few days. More sugar than starch throughout the day but still probably highest in fat. So far i feel sharper and more energetic with no negative effects and also basically happier, quick to laugh and smile. I could always eat any amount of sugar and feel fine but even a little coffee made me feel more alert and even sweat a little. I don't think this is bad though and am gonna keep drinking 1-2 cups per day. i'm hoping more sugar will improve my sleep since meat and potatoes definitely hasnt.
@Anonymous: Price found out that most people in the civilized nations are deficient in fat soluble vitamins supplied by milk, butter, fish and eggs, but that does in no way contradict what Matt said.
To quote Nourishing Traditions on page 493:
"Weston Price's studies convinced him that the best diet was one that combined nutrient-dense whole grains with animal products, particularly fish….This is one of the most important lessons of Price's research-that a mixed diet of whole foods, one that avoids the extremes of the carnivorous Masai and the largely vegetarian Bantu, ensures optimum physical development."
That said, i don't usually eat grains myself. Except for rice and probably corn in the future.
Jared Bond:
For most sea-foods, the amount of fat they contain is minuscule.
Pufa amounts
1lb of crab – 1.8g
1lb of Spiny Lobster – 2.7g
1lb of Whelk – 0.1g
1lb of Snapper – 3.0g
That, when combined with starchy staples like poi, cassava, yam, green banana amounts to an extremely low unsaturated diet.
MadMUHHH,
I think you're great. But are you absolutely certain there is no absolute truth?
Oh and thanks for thinking that I'm great.^^
It's interesting because I used to be raw vegan and know lots of fruitarians. Despite the nutritional inadequacies of such a diet, NONE of them are fat. Furthermore, many report that acne and other health problems resolve. Hmmm.
They have problems caused by fat soluble vitamin deficiencies and B12, but fructose doesn't seem to make them fat.
Edit: This post actually originally was above the post above this post (if you get what I mean). But I posted without looking at it before sending it. So there were a few langauge mistakes in there which i have now corrected.
@Danyelle:
The crucial part about that statement is the last bit:
"there certainly is no absolute truth and even if there was humans wouldn't even be capable of actualy grasping it"
Humans, by their very nature, aren't capable of finding the absolute truth. Our means of perception are limited. (I'm actually re-reading a fantastic book about all this right now. It's German though). We can only view the world from our own perspective and never in the way it actually is. The human body and human mind are limited, we can only perceive what our senses allow us to perceive and even then we simply aren't capable of regarding things in an objective way and seeing the ultimate truth behind it – if there is any. Our bodies were never designed or – to stay within context – throughout evolution never developed in a way to perceive the ultimate truth. Our brain acts in the way that makes the most sense for survival in an evolutionary context. Just as most of our decisions aren't based on a rational, objective intention (even though we'd like to believe that) we are only able to perceive certain things things in a way that is/weas critical for survival. We can't sense seismographic activities like snakes do, because we never needed to to survive. For snakes however this ability seems crucial for survival. But without this ability, without the ability to perceive the world in all it's facettes, how can we ever even hope to find out the absolute truth. If we are limited from the very beginning, how should we ever be able to see all things exactly like they are?
In the end our senses and mind could easily fool us. To make a simple example: How can you know that green is green. Our brains are interpeting certain wavelenghts of photons when being reflected and hitting the receptor cells in our eyes as green light. But does that mean that the light or the reflecting object actually is green? How are we supposed to know?
To be honest, I'm not exactly happy with my explanation of this. Even though I consider my English to be quite good there is always gonna be a loss or distortion of meaning when you communicate things in another language (or in any language at all for that matter. This is just another point. Language always is nothing more than a paraphrasation (does that word even exist?) of a certain meaning. Two sentences may not mean the same thing to two different persons. How would we ever even be able to articulate an absolute truth if our minds and language are simply not capable of conveying an exact meaning?)
@Melissa: I'd be cautious about that. I don't think the effects of fructose on fruitarians are in no way representative. I mean, how many calories of fruit can you eat a single day? Would you even be able to meet your daily requirements? I am pretty certain that any isocaloric diet can't really make you all that fat. You will never get fat eating just protein or just fat. That doesn't mean however that certain forms/amounts of protein/fat aren't fattening/damaging.
I really want to say something else, but if I do, the touchy creation/evolution debate will start up again, so I shall squelch it :)
I'm not insulted at all. I know I'm intelligent, and if this were the right place to discuss it, I could hold my own.
Lorelei- you could peel and freeze your bananas and mangoes for the future when you can eat fruit. I do that a lot for kefir smoothies. You could also make a LOAD of banana bread and freeze it :) I so wish I was near and I would take them bananas off your hands, but alas, I'm in Texas.
Most seafood even if it is low in fat is very high in cholesterol, which acts as an antioxidant.
Americans are terrified of cholesterol and would eat dog poop as long as it is labeled cholesterol free.
I also want to say two more things, kinda OT.
I read some other health blogs and yahoo groups and it seems like people who are used to the SAD diet are catching on with coconut oil and healthy fats, which is great. However, everyone it seems is stuffing themselves with all sorts of nuts to try and get healthy fats. I'm trying to warn people about omega 6, but don't think anyone is listening to me.
Also, this is way OT, but I made some beef stock yesterday with grassfed/organic bones and this morning after having been in the fridge all night, it is a hard, solid mass (I know, because of the gelatin.) This only happens with grassfed or organic bones or chickens, it never happens when I use conventional bones or chickens…am just wondering why this is.
Good work! I agree. Reading this blog and a few others, my mind has been meandering toward the same conclusions.
An idea I picked up on in a couple of other places is about "hibernation foods." In northern climates, nuts (non-tropical, with high omega-6) and fruits (fructose) appear in the late summer and fall, promoting fat storage (and an inflammatory state, not sure what the role of that is, or if it's just a side-effect). It all makes a lot of sense. That is, if you don't eat those things (omega-6 and fructose) all year long, like most Americans.
Did you see this? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100322121115.htm I thought it was interesting. While it doesn't, in my mind, vindicate white sugar, it does pose evidence and a reason why HFCS is especially poisonous and obesity-producing. (The fructose is unbound.) Since HFCS's rise in the food supply coincides with the obesity epidemic, it makes sense to me. I think if you added omega-6 to the mix, you get the perfect metabolic syndrome storm.
It also makes sense, since, as a 1970's kid, I ate tons of white sugar, as we all did, and most of us were skinny. Kids aren't skinny now. HFCS started getting added to soft drinks in 1975 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup, but I think its real explosion into the SAD was in the 1980's.
Uh-oh – another study. This one states that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats (they specifically state omega-6's) reduces CVD events. I haven't looked at the study itself. Please discuss. :)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100322211831.htm
Off topic, but did you see this NY Times article, Matt? Looks like baby diets are next. Terrifying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23obese.html?ref=health
to the mom who lives in hawaii (of which i am totally envious :) : i don't think you should limit what "real" foods your kids eat. even if you gave them white rice with lots of butter and cheese it would be better than the insane processed stuff most kids eat. even JT said he eats 4 meals a day of white rice and butter. your kids probably need more carbs in the form of potatoes or rice with lots of butter, cheese etc. to fill them up.
i am not going to try too hard to give you budget advice b/c i am the last person who would know how to have a good food budget–esp in hawaii where i am unfamiliar with prices. but what comes to mind is increasing your eggs, cheaper cuts of meats, potatoes and rice, oatmeal…maybe making the kids smoothies with those bananas and adding in gelatin (which you may or may not be able to buy locally, but seems like an inexpensive protein source), coconut milk/oil…
i am going to make jello with my 4 year old today with the gelatin i just got and even though it is not a huge amount of calories, it's a nice treat that your kids might like. i gotta say that $1500 for a family of 5 a month in hawaii sounds pretty good to me! i spend more than that for a family of 4, but one of us is only 7 months old and is exclusively breastfed at the moment.
Re: that NYT article. Oh god, that made me so upset I had to leave a comment. I refrained from submitting the "this is so fucking backwards!" version so hopefully it will be published by the moderator.
It's one thing for us to starve ourselves, eat shitty foods and fuck with our own metabolism, but it's quite another to do that to an innocent child. RARGH! Makes me so angry…
that link from the NY times about baby diets–unbelievable!! this is so twisted it's not even funny!
"Experts say change may require abandoning some cherished cultural attitudes. ?The idea that a big baby is a healthy baby, and a crying baby is probably a hungry baby who should be fed, are things we really need to rethink,? Dr. Birch said."
my 7 month old is a "chubby baby" and i am proud of it! she has never had anything but breast milk, which btw is not full of processed crap or even very many PUFA's or sugar b/c i choose to eat real food! neither of my children have ever had or will ever have commercial formula, baby food from a box, low fat dairy or packaged neon colored junk marketed with cartoon characters, or even cheerios. and i certainly will not deny my crying baby food. don't get me started! :)
I think it's a bad idea for anyone to eat a high carb diet… id like to see matt debate gary taubes or Micheal eades in person.
Anonymous, have you even read Gary Taubes' book "Good Calories Bad Calories" cause I have twice and it's a great book for two reasons:
1. It completely dispels the whole saturated fat causes heart disease.
2. It makes a great argument against refined carbs and excess fructose.
However, the jump it makes from refined carbs are bad to all carbs are bad is not really justified or backed up with any science. Mostly just some fascination with the Inuit and Stefansson. Besides we've already talked about it here and on Stephan Guyenet's website that there were plenty of healthy hunter gatherer groups that ate medium and high amounts of natural carbs.
JT,
I'm trying to keep an open mind to some of the stuff you have to say but your promotion of sugar just goes against not only my personal experience but basically everything that Weston Price saw and documented with his own eyes in many different civilizations. So my question to you, is where is your evidence that basically disproves Weston Price's book "Nutrition and physical degeneration" and shows the positive effects of sugar in the human diet?
Vida-
That cholesterol-free dog crap comment I would easily rank in the top 10 funniest things written in a comment at 180. High five!
Hawaii girl-
First, I'd lose the organic obsession. Since loosening up on it myself I've seen nothing but benefits. I wish I wasn't so obsessed when I was in Hawaii, or I could've been enjoying a lot more cheap seafood, rice, and root vegetables from Costco.
I too think the kids would do better with more starch, and white rice is probably fine as long as the rest of the diet is nutritious. I know the overweight islanders eat a lot of rice, but that is not the core of their problem. Refined sugar and vegetable oil is typically the issue that I believe shifts the tracks to weight gain town. The incorporation of rice, brown or white, is probably enough to solve your budgetary crisis. I would also go easy on the nuts – except for Mac nuts.
Fruitarian observer –
Yes, eating 80-10-10 will not make you fat. But 10% fat is probably low enough to get the metabolic stimulation of being low PUFA. None of this sugar is refined either, but contains its important complement of nutrients. Like I've said all along, equating refined and unrefined sugar is probably a tragic flaw.
Helen-
The mainstream still believes that saturated fat is the problem. I couldn't access the specific study, but usually they feed lard as the "saturated fat," and only focus on cardiac events – not all-cause mortality. There is much remaining to be discussed though.
And yes, I did see the NYTimes article but did not read it. Probably would've gone crazy if I did. Pretty soon pregnant and nursing moms will be limited to 100 calorie snack bars with soy protein, peanuts, and fructose to keep weight down. And all breast milk will have to be pre-measured and rationed out 1 ounce at a time to the infant. I can't wait! Fight that obesity epidemic America! Kick its ass!
If you want to see me debate low-carb authors, you should come on Jimmy Moore's low-carb cruise next year.
Taubes's book is excellent. It's not until the afterword that he starts talking about ketogenic dieting – which is a whole separate tangent from asserting that refined carbohydrates, sugar in particular, are the cause of modern health problems.
Both Eades and Taubes are incredibly easy to debate. Taubes in particular says that his greatest inspiration for the book was Weston A. Price. He also relied on the work of T.L. Cleave more than any other. Eades is into Cleave as well. Cleave was a huge fan of the carbohydrate, and observed the highest carbohydrate diet in the world producing excellent health.
Plus, these guys just assume that spiking insulin repeatedly causes insulin resistance, when all of the information out there rejects such an oversimplified hypothesis. Wanna become less insulin resistant? Eat more carbs. Wannna become more insulin resistant? Eat fewer carbs.
There were some positive signs in that NYTimes article, like more research into effects of sleep deprivation on obesity, and recommendation to breast-feed more. But then comes a comment like this, just perfectly illustrating how fantastically warped the mainstream thinking on diabesity is:
"?The intrauterine environment of a woman with diabetes overnourishes the fetus,? said the study’s author, Dana Dabelea, an epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health."
Yes, that's totally the problem! They're overnourished! Seriously, even though she probably meant something like fetuses of diabetic mothers are exposed to too much blood glucose, it's such a stupendously misleading choice of words.
Helen, that study you are linking is a junk. p values like 0.008 and 0.017 from that study are used as a measure of statistical significance only in pseudosciences like medical research. Hard sciences would require 0.00001 or better for a study to be considered for publishing and for making some conclusions. The thing is, with p=0.01 you can get the results you want easily by adjusting your method or data just a little, or by repeating the experiment several times until the chance gives you the "correct" data.
Given that it would be heretical to publish study showing beneficial effect of SFA or harmful effect of PUFA, this is most likely result of getting the results researchers needed to get for their careers not to end prematurely.
Given statistical insignificance of the results, it does not make sense to discuss that study from another point of view then this one ;)
Anonymous, Taubes and Eades are indulging themselves in the same junk science as just about anybody in this field. They only prove what they want to prove because of setting the bar for quality of evidence just as low as their opponents. The only difference is that some (but not all) of their recommendations are better then the mainstream, but qualitatively they are part of the same culture. But of course you are free to "think" whatever you want to. Especially if you "think" that some public show can decide the matter.
Matt… So right now what percent of your diet is Fat, protein, carbs?
how does it break down for you?
Madmuhh,
No problem man, you are a smart guy and I am glad to see you are a skeptical of your own ideas as well as everyone else. I try to do the same, but it is not easy.
Fruit in the US is horrible because it has been picked unripe from far away before being shipped and stocked. Fruit is bad in most places that have it imported. Once you have had local fresh fruit in tropical locations, you will see that it is completely different taste, and it affects your body differently as well.
Rosenfeltc,
The addition of sugar to my diet is something I am experimenting with now, but I am not sure whether or not it will pan out in the long run. So far I am having good results.
For a long time I had avoided sugar and fruit because it worsened my adrenal symptoms by lowering cortisol even more. Then I spent a month on an island with abundant fresh fruit and noticed to my surpirse that I tolerated it very well. I came back to the US and try to maintain the high fruit consumption, but couldn't because the quality is not the same and it made me sick to eat it. So, I had the idea of trying UNREFINED sugar as a replacement for fruit and have had good results.
I am a big fan of Price, and take him more seriously than I do most modern experts on nutrition. I think that the sugars can cause problems when it is refined, but maybe unrefined sugars with the nutrients still intact are a very healthy food. Traditional Ayurvedic culture thinks that unrefined sugar is healthy. If you want some modern researchers that think sugar is healthy, then you should read some of Ray Peat's work.
Jay,
You said, "Given that it would be heretical to publish study showing beneficial effect of SFA or harmful effect of PUFA, this is most likely result of getting the results researchers needed to get for their careers not to end prematurely."
You are right, and this has become a big problem. I have a friend who is a professor and scientific researcher for a large university. He had been running a large well funded research program. When he finally got the results, they were contrary to current conventional view. He was not congratulated for overturning false beliefs, he was threatened, and told he would not be allowed to publish his findings. This is not uncommon.
So much for the all of the official peer reviewed publications being objective unbiased truth!
From WP foundation
"These healthy high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets have several factors in common. One is that the animal foods were of exceptional quality. Insects, dried fish, shrimp, fish eggs and butter from pasture-fed cows are all excellent sources of the fat-soluble activators.
A low-protein, high carbohydrate diet is risky for those living in the industrialized world, where nutrient-dense animal foods like insects and fish eggs are avoided, where carbohydrate foods are not usually fermented, and where it is difficult to completely avoid refined and devitalized foods."
From WP foundation
"These healthy high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets have several factors in common. One is that the animal foods were of exceptional quality. Insects, dried fish, shrimp, fish eggs and butter from pasture-fed cows are all excellent sources of the fat-soluble activators.
A low-protein, high carbohydrate diet is risky for those living in the industrialized world, where nutrient-dense animal foods like insects and fish eggs are avoided, where carbohydrate foods are not usually fermented, and where it is difficult to completely avoid refined and devitalized foods."
JT,
Thanks for the response. So is unrefined sugar, brown sugar? Or is there also unrefined white sugar? Would I be able to find this in a normal super market or amazon?
JT, peer review can only enforce majority opinion about what good science is. If the majority thinks that good science is 5 sigma signals, then you get physics, it they think it's making good profit, you get medical research, and if they think that arbitrary models stands above evidence and observation, you get climate science and other junk sciences.
oh ya one more thing JT, I was looking around Ray Peat's website and I was thinking about ordering some of his books. Any recommendations? From what I could see I think I should get "GENERATIVE ENERGY: PROTECTING AND RESTORING THE WHOLENESS OF LIFE." and "MIND AND TISSUE: RUSSIAN RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON THE HUMAN BRAIN." because the other books seem like they are specifically for women
Fruit in the wild is very bitter almost like vegetable.. I wouldnt recommend anyone adding sugar into there diet.
So what specifically is an example of unrefined sugar? The Florida Crystals brand at my grocery store says it is evaporated cane sugar, but Nourishing Traditions says that it is the devil and ONLY to use Rapadura brand. But I can't find Rapadura. And what about unprocessed honey? What do you use, JT?
I still won't be eating a lot if it anyway as I probably still have quite a few PUFAs in my system, but my children are next to impossible to keep on a zero sugar diet since they are surrounded by grandparents and Sunday School teachers and team moms and random people off the street shoving HFCS at them. (I am not exaggerating, you have no idea how many people want to give cute children sugar.) I confiscate most of it but then feel like an ogre about it, so I'd like to be able to give them treats occasionally. They love fruit, but JT you say it's no good. So what unrefined sugars are best?
My middle child is actually on sugar restriction right now after an episode last week where he "ran away from home" hysterical, in the middle of the street. He cried for hours and generally ruined our day. I credited too much cake/ice cream/coke at a birthday the weekend before. There is an obvious difference in his demeanor for DAYS after he eats a large quantity of sugar.
@Anonymous: You are talking about the Weston Price Federation there, not Weston Price. Those two aren't always congruent.
@HighUp: Well, that very much depends. Especially if you look at tropical climates or the African climate which the human being seems to be very well adapted to. Also, I'd recommend you read this post.
@Danyelle: JT makes a point when he says that most fruit is picked when unripe and transported over long distance. But I personally still would chose fruit over unrefined sugar. It just makes more sense to me. Of course trying both out and seing how you/your kids react to it, probably would be best, but it just sounded a bit to me like you were ruling out food completely. I would not necessarily do that and if you look around a bit, you probably may be able to find some good quality fruit (but then again, I'm a bit spoiled here, since I live close to Europe's biggest apple growing region).
@MadMUHH, oh I would never rule out all fruit for my children. Here in Georgia we live very close to fresh peaches and strawberries and blueberries and oranges so I guess I should focus on those. I just wonder what kind of unrefined sugar might be best when I do want some sort of sugar/non-fruit option.
Matt said, "Plus, these guys just assume that spiking insulin repeatedly causes insulin resistance, when all of the information out there rejects such an oversimplified hypothesis. Wanna become less insulin resistant? Eat more carbs. Wannna become more insulin resistant? Eat fewer carbs."
This reminds me of something that Alwyn Cosgrove wrote (which I can't seem to find now)…he said something along the lines of "your body does the opposite of what you do to it" or something like that.
A couple of the examples that he gave were, if you restrict water intake, you will retain water. And if you want to burn off bodyfat, you need to deplete glycogen. On the second point, I believe that what happens is, if you are constantly engaged in fat burning exercise, the body will preferentially store fat for that activity. Conversely, if you are burning carbs, the body will preferentially store carbs over fat. Not exactly what you were saying but it just reminded me of it. My brain works in weird ways, LOL!
Very interesting article!
Just one comment for rosenfelt:
hey you p'tite bite, what's up?
Martin Verbeke.
@rosenfeltc, I have Generative Energy by Ray Peat. Half of the book is really "out there" but the other half has some really good health info. I personally think that it was worth the money.
@Will: That Cosgrove quote is interesting. I think I found it, or a version of it?
ttp://www.wellsphere.com/exercise-article/the-problem-with-weight-loss-your-body-will-do-the-opposite/534338
@Danyelle…in regards to your child running off, this may or may not pertain to your situation, but here is a quick story.
My son is high level functioning autistic, and through his developmental pediatrician putting him on supplements, etc., you would probably never know he had a problem (except for some slight speech problems). Anyway, he started kindergarten this year and he is super smart, well-behaved, etc…model student. About a month or two after he started, he began making a fuss at lunch time, didn't want to sit with any of the other kids, cried, ran out of the building several times…all this after 2 months of perfection. After wracking our brains, we finally figured it out. The doc changed his acidophilus from an infant version to an adult version. I would have never thought in a million years that something as "benign" as that could have caused this. The doc explained that it may have been caused by excessive die-off of "the bad stuff" in his system (I can't remember exactly what). Not that the sugar didn't cause your child's reaction, but keep an out for anything different in their diet, allergens, etc. It may not be what you think. Just my 2 cents. Good luck because I KNOW that stuff is tough to get a handle on.
Humans do really well on just about anything besides modern processed foods. I basically follow a "milk diet." 60% of my calories probably come from pastured unprocesse dairy products. The rest is meat and vegetables. Many paleo types would say it's a terrible diet because "Grok" didn't eat that way. Please. It's the crap. 100 grams of lactose or 100 grams of sweet potato does not wreak havoc like 100 grams of Pizza Hut.
Danyelle, many times parents notice changes in behavior after their child eats something sweet so they blame it on the sugar. However, many times when they look deeper into the problem it is food colorings that cause these problems, especially the color blue, it seems. So maybe the cake or some candy or something had a lot of chemical food coloring and this could be the cause of the problem.
Zach, i followed a raw milk diet and it made me feel extremely horrible, i swear by it, it drive my autoimmune disease / hypothyroidism into over drive, why this happened i have no idea.
@Gazelle…you're awesome! I think that there was more to it than what was in that article (maybe a chapter in one of his books maybe?) but that was the exact thought that I was looking for. Thanks!
thanks Will and Vida. Yes, I'm trying to pay attention but it's really tough, esp. when all 3 are so different and I'm different from them and their Dad has his own issues too. So that's 5 I'm trying to diagnose and feed. Yeesh.
You know, come to think of it, the birthday cake was VERY blue and he had two enormous pieces of that. Maybe not a coincidence, huh?
JT-
It may not be the fruit that's the difference. It could be other aspects of a tropical area, such as extra iodine from swimming in the ocean, extra sunglight, relaxing on the beach to let your adrenals recharge, and other factors. You never know. I agree that local tropical fruit is a different animal though.
Jay-
Nailing it buddy.
And yes, the body is regulated via an endless array of homeostatic feedback mechanisms (all things in nature are regulated this way). Push one way and you the body pushes back in the opposite direction.
And WAPF worshipper-
If the WAPF diet is so safe, please explain to me why the followers of the WAPF are so unhealthy?
There are more complexities to understand, and a vast assortment of dietary strategies that can be used to overcome, reverse, and prevent 21st century health problems. Joel Fuhrman gets 9 of 10 type 2 diabetics within normal blood sugar ranges and off of all diabetic medications. Can Sally Fallon or Thomas Cowan claim that? No, but they can quickly discredit anyone not eating enough fat soluble vitamins. To them, it's more important to eat butter and cod liver oil than it is to overcome diabetes.
And Zach-
Preach on. It's not "neolithic foods" but uber-neolithic foods like HFCS, vegetable oil, food additives, flavor enhancers, and, ahem, blue dye.
Matt, what about avocadoes and olives – they are both relatively high in PUFAs and only grow in warm climates. Peat seems to think avocadoes are carcinogenic (!) … I love them and hate to give them up … any thoughts?
rosenfeltc,
I use rapadura sugar. Just try to find some type of unrefined sugar that has not had the molasses part removed, it should be unrefined cane juice that is dehydrated. You can buy it online if you can't find it at the store, and it is probably cheaper.
I don't have Peat's books, but i should probably get them. The info I have regarding his ideas comes from his articles and communicating with him. I keep thinking I need to buy his books, but never get around to it.
Zach, you're not alone. Though, did you do everything right? I failed, but my situation is very unique.
Danyelle,
I wouldn't rule out fruit, especially if you can get it local and fresh. Just experiment and see what works best. Maybe it will be fruit juice, maybe fruit, or maybe it will be sugar. I don't think one is better than the other, but one may be better for the individual.
Matt,
The fruit tastes completely different. A papaya or mango or banana that is local and fresh tastes and affects completely differently than ones that have been imported thousands of miles away. I know it wasn't just the fruit that made the difference. The environment probably played just as big a part as the food. People need to pay more attention to their environment instead of just focusing on food, and realize that different foods are appropriate for different environments.
We come out of Africa though.I really doubt we evolved out of tropical regions.IMO we evolved out of areas of great plains.So tons of grass to feed the grazers….and then we can hunt down the grazers for high calorie nutrients.
"Dinosaur said…
Matt, what about avocadoes and olives – they are both relatively high in PUFAs and only grow in warm climates. Peat seems to think avocadoes are carcinogenic (!) … I love them and hate to give them up … any thoughts?"
avocados and olives definitely have a growing season, so even in temperate climates they're only available during a certain season
i think a major point to be made with all this light/ fat content/ seasonal talk is that healthy humans probably need shifts in carb-protein-fat ratios, just as in nature different foods are available different times of year
a great book that discusses this is The Three Season Diet by John Duilliard http://www.amazon.com/3-Season-Diet-Nature-Intended-Cravings/dp/0609805436
it's not a near-perfect book but it's pretty amazing
Speaking of Sally Fallon, I'm going to see her give a talk this Saturday on raw milk. Should I ask her about the Milk Diet? ;-)
I think Sally does a milk diet from time to time from what I hear. Have fun seeing her speak. It's pretty powerful to hear her in person.
Yes, the point of this post was to say that ideally we'd eat only foods that are suited for warm, non-seasonal climates. If we are going to eat seasonal foods at higher latitudes, we probably shouldn't eat those foods 365 days per year. And avocado and olives aren't that high in PUFA. Nothing like most nuts and seeds.
Back to human design, we are certainly smart enough to figure out how to hunt and kill big game. I think meat and fat from big game animals is certainly suitable food – very low PUFA for sure. But designed to hunt big game? We ain't no Cheetahs.
Matt, didn't you talk some sense into Jimmy! Too bad to see him failing like this.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=7447
All egg diet; that might be a little too much PUFA's! I'm sure one day he'll do a 180…
Danyelle,
I hear you on people feeding cute kids sugar!
I always wonder why people give kids sweets before they inevitably start begging for them on their own. I have had a grace period this first two years in which I've had almost total control, but every story my daughters read, old or new, has cookies, cakes, and ice cream in it, and they are getting the idea fast. Like you, I'm looking for reasonable alternative sweeteners to use for home baking because a sugar-free life is just impossible. Plus, I don't want to be "that mom," though I am sure I am indeed that mom!
I can at least reassure myself that in their first 18 months of eating solid food, they developed a taste for a lot of non-sugary stuff, which is more than a lot of parents can say. They have good, varied tastes.
I wonder about sugar and behavior, too. One night I let them eat all the applesauce they wanted. (They were still recovering from diarrhea anyway, thought it might help.) They went temporarily insane. Two-year-olds are pretty insane, anyway, but they really seemed to have come unhinged. Then, tonight, one of my daughters had a meltdown two hours after I let her have some super-wholesome, molasses-sweetened, gluten-free animal crackers at the food co-op. I've never done that before when it wasn't a special occasion or visiting people. (This was after reading this comment string with some pro-sugar statements – guess I'm impressionable.) Sure, two-year-olds have meltdowns regularly, but I really did wonder. I looked at the sugar grams and she couldn't have had more than eight grams, though. Could that put a toddler over the edge?
OMG, I was just looking through Good Morning America's website, the health section…and it is scary. I guess it is places like this that the American sheeple get their health advice from.
There is so much crap information, I can't people actually believe that stuff. There is even a featured Valerie Bertinelli/Jenny Craig soup entree recipe with only 65 calories!
There are also kids meals suggestions, like sliced banana and apple sauce between two slices of bread, a cup of fat free milk and carrots sticks…wtf.
If I presented that to my growing 3 year old son he would throw it in my face for sure.
Matt, I like your moniker for me – Hawaii Girl – so can I call you Sunshine?
I went to the store today and saw my cart was loaded with oat groats, rice, sweet potatoes… carb overload?
So, would you say Hawaii fruit is good, at least once a day, for dessert or a breakfast smoothie? High fructose fruit is what we tend to have and eat. Maybe if we always combine it with fat (coconut oil!) and protein. I guess bananas could at least be fried and eaten green as a starch.
We went low carb because it seemed we were eating nothing but fruit (welcome to Hawaii diet!), much more than starch – and still having health problems.
Since adding starch and fruits back in, we, especially the kids, crave them – do you think because they're good for you, or because they're addictive?
What about grains other than rice? Kids crave the wheat – I only feed soaked or sprouted, but still. I haven't noticed specific problems… but they're rashy haole kids, and I can't figure out why. We did a huge elimination challenge and tested everything we could think of.
Do you think kids' metabolism can be off? Would they benefit from HED?
5 people with different issues, that's us! Like somebody else here!
Why do you say WAPF followers are unhealthy? Could it be they're following WAPF because they're unhealthy, or did WAPF make them unhealthy? Me, I went from homemade but sugar-laden SAD to fasting and raw to somewhere in between raw and WAPF (raw desserts rule!) to low carb (raw desserts have so much sugar!) within the last two years.
I worry about organic because I have terrible chemical sensitivity, I'm now sensitive to everything. That's what started me on my food journey, I wasn't going to fall for the "gotta live with all these symptoms" crap. I can't walk down the cleaner aisle without getting violently ill… Don't even talk to me about paint or carpet… Redid a house and within two weeks I was down for the count. I'm still recovering. But most "organic" I buy is really sustainable local produce. Local is a big deal, I think it's soooo important in Hawaii!
I like the idea that living here is healing in other ways (higher iodine, adrenal-resting, etc). Except the non-stress of the beach might be mitigated by the stress of food costs!
Hyperactivity in children after sugar consumption is something many parents say they notice, so it might be true. But, even if sugar did give the kids a sudden burst of energy, that doesn't mean it is bad. maybe the kids systems need to be up to run better. Maybe it is like giving them super fuel!
Lorelei, You are lucky, if i lived in Hawaii I would enjoy all of the local fruits that i could. Morning are usually the worst time to have fruits, especially if you have adrenal or blood sugar issues. Your allergies and chemical sensitivities sound like you may have adrenal problems.
JT, I know my adrenals are shot. Years of bad eating, poor sleeping and (wah wah, poor me) growing up in an abusive alcoholic household. I was constantly sick as a child, and I remember soon after I got out of that place, I stared having all kinds of strange diseases, usually auto-immune. I've been trying to build my adrenals up and sometimes take dessicated adrenal, but I know they're still off – a month ago the neighbour's pit bulls (side note, what is the deal with people and their pit bulls???) came into our yard and attacked our dogs. I went into high fight or flight mode, and lets just say the dogs recovered way, way faster than I did. I was still shaky and nauseated 24 hours later, and quite sick for a week. Bah humbug.
So no fruit in the morning, then? I get Dr. Mercola's posts too, and he's suddenly on a major anti-fructose rampage, which make me leave those bananas in the car port. Top that off with I've been wondering about candida (eczema rashes, haole rot)and thus avoiding most carbs. Then Matt says starchy carbs are good otherwise you ruin your adrenals more, then we've got fruit is good as long you live in Hawaii!
I wanted to say too, since we eased off being low carb in the last week, I've noticed I'm not as cold… (yeah, I've been feeling very cold even in Hawaii) but maybe it's just warmer this week! It's hard to say, I never check the weather anymore.
Matt, I was just rereading the first posts and you said PUFAs take awhile to leave. Except for nuts (admittedly a lot, love them raw food desserts), we haven't really eaten the major offenders in 2 or so years.
So much to learn…
Lorelei, If your adrenals are that bad then you should have them tested by a professional. I had to take hydrocortisone for a year before I got better. This will really help if you have severe adrenal insufficiency. Do you notice that you have problems when you eat fruit, like hypoglycemia? If not, then it probably isn't a problem for you. If so, then you might be better off with a Schwarzbeinian HED type of diet for a while.
Seems like your biggest problem is that you keep trying to find the "optimal" diet and only eat "healthy" foods. The problem with this is that what is optimal or healthy for you may be different for some diet guru. Start placing more emphasis on your own experience with diet and food and how it affects you personally. Who knows, maybe the Big Mac diet would make you the healthiest and happiest. I know plenty of people that (including myself) only got sicker once they got on a health kick and only ate "healthy" foods that some diet guru said was good.
Loreai aka Hawaii Girl,
With kids (and for you, if you're having more or still nursing), I would stick to organic food. Kids metabolize pesticides much, much less effectively than adults, and their growing endocrine systems, brains, and whatnot are much more vulnerable. Check out Jenny at Diabetes Update if you want another view on how okay chemical exposure is. Atrazine is a commonly used pesticide implicated in both diabetes and male reproductive dysfunction.
When you're pregnant and/or nursing, you can pass on to your young any nasty bromides (fire retardants) or plasticizers (estrogen mimics) that hang around in your cells until pregnancy and lactation mobilizes them. Nice, isn't it? Chlorella taken by the mother seems to keep toxins from being passed on. I took it – so far, so good.
As for rashes, do you put a barrier moisturizer on your kids' skin morning and night? Either vaseline or Eucerin work – I'm sure coconut oil would work well, too. It helps keep allergens from irritating the skin, and keeps the skin moist so that the skin doesn't start reacting to its own dryness, which, oddly, is often what happens with eczema.
I meant Lorelei.
Mmm, Matt, why the word designed? That's like stablishing a limit in evolution, yet not even the best biologists can tell (or where able to tell) how much of an animal's behaviour was acquired trough learning or instincual, or even how any physical characteristic takes it's final form (ie, teeth). Even more, to say something is "natural" or not to a species such as humans seems a bit idealistic. We do what we do, so that's it. We go to the moon, we kill ourselves, we fuck, we change. Oh, man, it's just that you all started talkin' about phylosophy and ugg… Hate that shit. Anyway, my point is, the expressions "don't have the means to", "are less adapted to" or "are foreign to" seem more to the point and less prone to misunderstandings. Unless you believe we've actually been "designed" to be in a certain way (by who, what?), rather than "adapted to", which are different things. Just my 2 cents.
Gu?cale, phylosophy.
"We come out of Africa though.I really doubt we evolved out of tropical regions.IMO we evolved out of areas of great plains.So tons of grass to feed the grazers….and then we can hunt down the grazers for high calorie nutrients."
I have to agree and disagree at the same time. #
You are correct, right now it seems to be most likely that we evolved out of an African climate that actually is a little more dry than the tropical climate. But the question is: Would that make a difference?
Assuming that our ancestors who lived in Africa only ate meat and very low-carb is pretty much nonsense in my opinion. Why would you limit yourself to big game and low-carb veggies if your environment at the same time contained easy to collect tubers and fruits. It is a fact that fruit and tubers were avaivable to our hunter/gatherer ancestors, so why the hell does anyone think they wouldn't eat that? Seems much more comfortable than hunting down some food to me. (I'm not implying that our ancestors where vegetarian btw, that's even more bogus).
Also we seem to be very well adapted to a shoreline existence, which would in most ways offer similiar foods that a tropic climate would. For more, you can read this. I don't think the difference between the avaivable foods of a tropical region and a sub-tropical shoreline region is rather small. After all the main difference between a tropical and a sub-tropical climate is the dryness.
undertow, I did some checking on Jimmy Moore's new diet. On 1500 calorie starvation diet he would be eating 15g of pufas per day. On a little more reasonable 2000 calorie diet it would be 20g per day. On "normal" 3000 calorie diet it would be 29g per day.
Wow. Let's wish him luck, he's gonna need it. Even when I was looking like him and was still eating high pufa diet mindlessly, I don't think I ate 15 or more grams of pufas per day. This is going to make him more insulin resistant then ever and once he tries to eat more normal diet then all egg, well … you get the picture. I think he would be better if he just tried to starve himself on low fat diet.
JT – I don't notice hypoglycemia, more like cravings for more, more, more! I think the HED diet is the way I'll go (with the occasional banana, of course!). Right now, money for yet another test doesn't exist. I don't do insurance since other than a bullet wound or a broken bone, I'll never go to the hospital or a regular doctor (thanks Obama for planning to fine me for that!), so all medical stuff is out of pocket.
I think the Big Mac diet is awesome! I started with a raw diet when I first got very sick, because it was the only thing "natural" I could find online to cure me of the immediate concern I had (a strange kind of eczema called dishydrotic eczema). After going raw, adding in Armour (which I'm off of since it became scarce), natural progesterone cream, and figuring out I was allergic to corn, it's not quite cured but at least controllable. Raw didn't seem smart to me, though, so we gravitated to WAPF, and now I want to cure everything else wrong!
Which is maybe all metabolism related. I haven't the patience to keep adjusting my diet! I want results now! Have I mentioned I have NO patience?
Helen – luckily kid bearing is over! The kids get vit E/coconut oil on rashes every night and after water. It appears to be typically eczema, although the youngest had haole rot (like ringworm) too.
Moms whose kids freak out with sugar – besides it being, well, sugar, I remember my sister telling me that if mom's adrenals were shot when she was pregnant, then likely baby's will be too, from birth. Another reason sugar might freak them out so.
Again, I wonder, would HED be good for kids?
madmuHH,
Hey fellow countrymen :)
You have any source for the claim that our african ancestors had access to an abudant supply of tubers and fruits?
I think that is, as well as the opposite claim, rather speculative.
I think in fact we dont really now what the first humans ate and what they're adapted to…
Lorelei, if you guys go to the beach a lot, that ring worm type rash and other rashes could be caused by bacteria in the water and sand. Maybe try a couple drops of tea tree oil (or something similar) mixed in with the coconut oil.
I know this may not be absolute fact, but I watched a program a couple weeks ago featuring early humans, starting from australopithecus, and it said their primary diet was made up of tubers, which they dug up from the ground with small sticks. They supplemented their diets with some meat when they found an already dead animal. Ok…I know, that was a long time ago, but I'm saying, that if even then they used tools to dig up tubers, I'm sure human species would have kept doing the same thing.
JT, I have to agree there, Jimmy is going to be digging his hole much deeper now, he is listening to the so-called experts way to much. He is caught up in the carbs cause insulin resistance world.
Needs to change to: livin-la-vida-NO-REFINED-carb
On sugar and meltdowns – I have them sometimes too, but have been getting better. The question is always "does the sugar cause the meltdown in and of itself, or does a crappy metabolism/low body temp/adrenals caused by something else cause sugar to cause the meltdown?"
Hawaii girl-
I ate no fruit the last 9 months I lived in Hawaii, except for in short bursts by themselves. I may have tried to eat 1 fruit per day at some point, but usually that led to 1 fruit per hour and I literally spent the whole day thinking about fruit and was quite unstable. I still think it's better to eat 7 fruits one day, and zero for the following 6 to get your "1 fruit per day." There's no question that the fam. will be less fungal, yeasty, hungry, emotional, and chemically sensitive on a much lower-fruit diet. Both my girlfriend and I find sugar-free eating to be almost an instant cure for those issues.
My general feelings about Jimmy can be summarized by this:
:(
Poor son of a bitch. Suicide by huevo. What he's doing is exactly what I warn people about more than any other. He's eating like 1,500 calories a day too. That might be a little on the low side for a 289-pound dude.
On WAPF followers-
Yes, most probably have gravitated to the WAPF because of health problems – and many are probably much better off than before despite still looking like hell. The only thing that matters is whether you are getting better or worse, and no one can look at another person and know which direction their current diet and lifestyle is leading them.
El66k-
I agree. We are highly adaptable.
Jannis-
The evidence I brought forward in this post was the evidence that humans have the design features of a creature well-adapted to warm, non-seasonal climates. There are certain characteristics of the food chain in such areas. One is a much lower level of PUFA in the food chain because PUFA, in general, is a cold weather adapted fatty acid.
Oh heck no, HED wouldn't be good at all!!
Breast milk is the HED. Is that not good for kids? Perhaps if it was lower in carbs all of our prayers would be answered?
When my adrenals and thyroid were shot, I charted my morning temps for like 6 weeks and it looked like an EKG…it was all over the place. Last several days my morning temps were 97.5, +/- .1…very stable now, a little on the low side but I haven't been sleeping much because I have lots to do right now.
Using info from Dr. Bruce West's Health Alert newsletter and working with a chiro that is a Dr. West fan, I took Drenamin and Thytrophin which are whole food supplements made by a company called Standard Process. They were a bit pricey but I don't take them at all anymore. I got more relief from the Drenamin than the Thytrophin so maybe my adrenals were more shot than my thyroid.
Dr. West talks about something called B Complex Deficiency Syndrome (BCDS) and he uses Drenamin for that, but he also said that you can use Brewer's Yeast because it has all the B vitamins except B12, but if you want B12 you can either eat liver or take dessicated liver tabs. B-50's or B-100's etc, won't work because they are synthetic and unbalanced (as far as what would be found in nature). Brewer's Yeast (B's Y) is cheap and I would highly recommend it to ANYONE with any kind of adrenal problem. The stuff from Standard Process is top notch, but if you want to get rolling without spending a ton of cash, try B's Y. I have seen B's Y fix migraines, muscle weakness in the extremeties, seizure-like problems, adrenals, etc. You can get 250 tabs at WalMart for under $3 or online even cheaper. I take a dozen or so tabs a day. It may make you more tired for a few weeks while you heal, but you will feel better in the long run.
That's my secret tip of the day. Worked like a miracle for me and everyone that I have recommended it to, ESPECIALLY if you cut out white flour and white sugar (that was what helped me and my wife the most, the combo of B's Y and stopping white flour and sugar). It's cheap so it should fit into anyone's budget. Good luck.
@Jannis:
You certainly do raise a point there that much about our ancestors diet is speculation.
And while it is certainly questionable whether the supply of fruits and tubers was "abundant" I think it is hard to argue that it at least was "significant".
I can't give you one single conclusive source for that, but it is a fact that our ancestors definitely ate fruits and tubers. And while it may be debatable how much of their diet consisted of such carbs, I think it is very realistic to assume that they got a rather good amount. Competition for tubers wasn't that big since many animals don't eat them or don't know how to dig them up and because of this you could easily "take note" were tubers were growing and always resort to those when other food was scarce (I also read that somewhere, don't know where though).
The most conclusive picture about a hunter/gatherer diet can probably only be obtained by looking at which kind of foods were avaivable at that time and where our ancestors exactly lived and then, if possible, comparing it to contemporary hunter gatherer tribes living in similar regions.
Fortunately, there are such tribes and they eat a significant amount of tubers.
The best links I can offer you for this are here and here.
Apart from that I also know that some researchers (Loren Cordain for example) did some calculations about the kinds and amounts of foods Hunter/Gatherers ate and while those certainly offer just a rough estimation I think they also came up with the results that fruit and tuber amounts were relatively high (not 80% of calories high, but still "significant"). I could be wrong there though, might need to google that one up if I can find it.
@Will: But why the need for tabs? Wouldn't buying pure brewer's yeast be even less expensive and perhaps more effective?
Roger Williams certainly had some good data showing how the removal of B vitamins from refined carbohydrates was the key difference between refined and unrefined carbohydrate – and made the difference between sickness and disease. McCarrison came to similar conclusions – that in the absence of B vitamins no system in the body works as well as it should – and no food is properly metabolized.
@madMUHHH…I think the tabs are just powder condensed into tabs, but I could be wrong. I don't know if I would *enjoy* the taste of Brewer's Yeast so I just stick with the tabs, LOL!
@Matt…Amen Brother! How about an article Comrade! ;^)
I just can't keep this very important info to myself. I feel like a B vitamin evangelist!
How about I read me some Bruce West and read a lot more Roger Williams and then do a post? Hold me to it. Gimme a few months though.
You got it Matt…thanks!
"I spent the whole day thinking about fruit" – fruit is sooo good… drool… I completely agree, let a little sugar in, and it creeps in more and more and more. I still have the problem of it being free and hubby being a proud gatherer. Plus, I can't take dessert away from them, their food life sucks enough according to them, so we'll stick to one a day rather than 7 in one! We'll just have to have dessert and keep our daytime fruit to berries in the smoothie, which seems to be safe, so far. And yes, we have found a wild raspberry patch – and we may be the only people on the island who know about it! We've cut out honey and dates and all those other yummies that used to go in everything, so hopefully just a little fruit won't be too much.
Matt, do you know much about chayote or pippinola (sp?), both forage-able or cheap starches in Hawaii, I think. Could they be good too?
Vida – tea tree goes on every open wound. Those coral scrapes are a b**** to heal.
Thoughts on the Paleo diet – I would think the most primitive tribes deep in the Amazon jungle probably are a good representative. I'm pretty sure they had starch of some kind, although I don't really know. Except for the Inuit, pretty much everybody does. And who says these putative hunter-not-gatherers were eating the optimal diet anyhow? Paleo for population control!
On top of that, I recently switched our dogs to an all raw, mostly meat diet. The debate on what dogs should eat rages on too. What makes most sense to me is to give them some tubers, grains and fruit for 2 reasons – 1) wolves and coyotes definitely eat non-meat foods like berries, crab apples and such; and 2) they would eat the contents of the prey's stomach, which would include predigested (cooked or fermented?) grains and vegetable foods. Plus, dang it, I can cut down food costs by feeding them a little sauerkraut, cooked potato or soaked and cooked oats. It's still better than poisoned crap from China!
But how that relates to us – I know I read somewhere, probably NT, about how some tribe would ferment up the contents of the caribou (?) stomach and eat it all. Surely paleo peeps might have done similar things, therefore getting their own predigested grains and starches.
Who knows. Before I got sick, I used to say I didn't care if I got diabetes, I'd eat what I wanted (SUGAR!) till I died. Then I got sicker than I could handle (but not diabetes!) and now I'm obsessed with it all.
Thank goodness for Matt and people like him, so we can learn from their experiments!
JT,
Thank you for your response. Your response seems very polite and patient, and I respect you for that. I see that I was wrong for presuming what you believe. I'm really sorry for being so judgmental about your intentions. I'm new to this blog, so I don't know much about the people here. I didn't know you're a respected contributer on this blog. I'll work harder not to judge people at first sight.
I will admit that I was too harsh to you in my past comments. Even though I may have said otherwise, my tone of my writing was out-of-line. I was getting defensive for the wrong reasons. I thought that you wouldn't do the same thing for a creationist who has attacked others. I was wrong. I'll try harder to be more positive.
Ha ha! Organism as a Whole you are cute. You don't have to tiptoe around guys like JT. He can take it. Skip the politeness in your comments and just cut to the chase. 180 doesn't have the reputation for its politeness, but that politeness is set aside for a higher purpose. If you have something to say, unleash. If it's out of line or doesn't jive, you'll get called on it. That's the beauty of an active forum of ideas. We keep each other in check.
Chayote! I haven't cooked that in probably 2 years. That is probably a great starch. I used to love cooking diced chayote till it was nice and brown with onions, chiles, and corn in coconut oil. Maybe I'll do a 180 Kitchen vid. on chayote soon.
Thanks for fascinating article Matt. What'd you think about the importance of grass fed beef or hormone free beef?
Matt, your article had some good points, but you tend to oversimplify some issues, which does weaken your message to some degree. Here are a few things I wanted to point out, in the spirit of adding to your knowledge, not to just pick at you. I do believe the PUFAs & fructose are over-consumed in the SAD, but I think that it is overkill to limit them as drastically as some are now recommending. Since our bodies can make some PUFAs, there is probably a threshold you can't get below, so at some point you are needlessly being draconian about eating a few nuts when it won't make any difference over all. vegetable oil, being concentrated, is another story….
you wrote:"Fructose, found in greatest concentration in fruit, is only found in conjunction with polyunsaturated fat in seasonal climates for a very brief amount of time"
I want to point out that omega 3 fatty acids are used in the chloroplasts of photosynthesizing organisms to regulate the fluidity of thylakoid membranes. Thus, anything green is a source of omega 3 fatty acids. temperate or tropical, grass, leaves have omega 3s. The reason some fish & marine mammals have high omega3 is they are bio-accumulating it from phytoplankton (microscopic photosynthetic organisms. farm raised salmon is lacking omega3 because it is fed pellets rather than photosynthesizing organisms. The reason grass fed cows, etc have more omega3 is that they are eating the green parts of plants (grass). during the winter if they eat the same plant but dead (hay) they will have a lower omega3 concentration in milk, etc. ok, so where am i going with this? there is plenty of green plant material in the tropics, and plenty of animals that feed on it. in addition, organisms contain a variety of fatty acids, so any meat will contain some omega6, some omega3, some saturated fat – the fat may be called saturated because it is mostly saturated, not because it is 100% saturated. about seeds: cashews are an example of a tropical seed with a high amount of PUFAs, as are brasil nuts. many other seeds in the tropics germinate rapidly after dispersal, so they do not need to be composed of saturated fat, like a coconut, which floats at sea for months.
back to your statement:
"Fructose, found in greatest concentration in fruit, is only found in conjunction with polyunsaturated fat in seasonal climates for a very brief amount of time"
in fact, some of our monkey relatives eat mostly leaves and fruits, thus a decent amount of PUFAs COMBINED with fructose (with a higher fiber content than our modern fruits, but still plenty of fructose). notice that though the PUFAs equal the saturated fats, the overall fat intake is low (less than %10):
http://nature.berkeley.edu/miltonlab/pdfs/diet_primate_evolution.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/qj3382576021vj58/
finally, here is a great site where you can get high sat-fat pork (like i said, we likely don't need the unnaturally huge amounts of PUFAs in our present diet). note that grass fed pork is HIGH in PUFAs, so not ideal (even though it has an eco-friendly sound). european pork is apparently raised to be high SAT fat & they won't touch our crappy pork.
http://woolypigs.blogspot.com/2009/02/soft-pork-mangalitsa-fat-quality-and.html
sorry for the long post, but i thought you would appreciate the info……
if you look at the graphs in this article, you will see that even if eating ONLY sat fatty acids (for a whole year no less), rabbits will still maintain a certain amount of PUFAs in your tissues (although granted, we are not rabbits). if you eat ALL PUFAs the rabbits ratio of PUFA is skewed. BUT, my take is, if the body wants to maintain x amount as PUFAs (which do, in fact have a crucial role in the body), trying to eliminate all PUFAs is foolish. in the article, the sat fat fed rabbits maintained the same as the "control", which i assume was fed a mix of oils. so, if you end up in the same place anyway, why not just eliminate veg oil & the highly concentrated forms of PUFA, & be looser about other sources? i fear that PUFA is the new carb, which is just another unreasonable and unfounded extreme. what happened to moderation?????
http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/07/sas-mufas-vs-pufas-fat-storage-depends.html
also, in to illustrate the fact that PUFAs are essential to cellular membrane structure, here is another article. it also points out that we consume too much PUFAs, but we need them in our diet. here is a quote:
"Generally speaking, omega-6 PUFAs enhance certain immune functions, while omega-3s decrease them. However, things are not quite so simple, as these fatty acids have both pro- and anti-inflammatory effects. What is not known is whether simply increasing the consumption of long-chain omega-3s without reducing omega-6 intakes would reduce chronic disease risk in healthy people, as it appears to do in those with heart disease and certain other conditions. Because the metabolism of these two fatty acids is interconnected, it has been estimated that lowering the intake of omega-6s would reduce the amount of long-chain omega-3s needed to obtain their health benefits without risking those of omega-6s."
http://www.fatsoflife.com/omega-6s.php
i guess overall i really like the message on this site because it cures the "carb phobia" scare tactics, but now it seems to be slipping into "all PUFAs are evil" mode. why do we have to demonize? moderation seems reasonable, along with avoiding substances you have a reaction to (like gluten or casein for some), why does there have to be a magic evil substance that must be avoided at all cost? just asking……plus, unlike gluten, our bodies actually NEED PUFAs & will make their own if we are deficient (except essential fatty acids, which we must ingest, but in low amounts).
"Fruit in the wild is very bitter almost like vegetable.. I wouldnt recommend anyone adding sugar into there diet."
i have had many wild fruits while hiking, like strawberries, blueberries, etc., and they are tiny, but sweet & wonderfully delicious. the closest thing in the market to wild type tomatoes are those tiny little grape tomatoes, which are also the most flavorful & sweet. they have been bred through the years to be big & store well, but the wild ones are amazing. as a botanist i have eaten many delicous sweet fruits in the wild of species that have never been cultivated. think about it – they want to be dispersed by mammals or birds, which love sweet, so natural selection leads to sweeter fruits (a balance between the "cost" of the fruit to the plant & the increase in dispersal rates) since those are chosen by dispersers, thus have a greater chance of passing on their genes. i am sick of hearing that wild fruits are tart crappy things, that is just not true in all cases.
Anonymous talking about pufas-
according to ray peat if you do not eat the unstable omega 3 & 6 your body makes its own polyunsaturated fats (omega 9 mead acids i think) which are very stable and have various benefits. so your body does need pufas but it can make them itself.
Fantastic response anonymous-
I don't have a bent on PUFA like it's the new carb. I am aware that the body produces its own omega 9 PUFA, eicosatrenoic acid/Mead acid when omega 6 and 3 are at very low levels.
The reason I talk about PUFA pretty stricly (and I usually try to pinpoint omega 6 specifically), is because modern humans have 10 times the omega 6 tissue concentration of what can be considered normal. To actually reverse that, it takes some severe omega 6 restriction – otherwise there's nothing to take advantage of. I'm not saying nuts are healthy or unhealthy, but rather suggesting that if you want to get your cellular fats back in line, you might consider going uber low-O6 for a year or two before returning to "moderation."
Plus, walnuts are just as concentrated in omega 6 as refined oil by % of calories.
As for the Mead acid that is produced in EFA deficiency, it's thought to displace AA, play the same role, but in a far less inflammatory way. I liken it to using a rifle with a silencer to take out a threat instead of a nuclear bomb. In AA overload, the inflammatory response is overkill, with lots of collateral damage. I believe that displacing AA with self-generated Mead acid could very well be the most significant thing a person could do to overcome any inflammatory condition, and the word is awash in an inflammation epidemic.
I was aware of the foliage and omega 3 content. Read an interesting article on that recently – saying that O3 was spring fat and O6 was fall fat. All the more reason to eat seasonally, and not continiously eat fall, hibernation fats 365 days per year.
Outstanding response though, and let's not forget that the Kitavans, while they may consume on about 1 gram of omega 6 per day – they still consume 3 grams of omega 3. PUFA is not totally absent from the food chain in non-seasonal climates, but in general, the food chain is certainly richer in saturated than PUFA compared to more Northerly climates. Kitavans, eating locally, only consume 2% of dietary calories as PUFA. The latest official recommendations to come out urge Americans to eat 15% of calories as PUFA. There's a huge difference there.
thanks matt,
yeah, i totally see drastically reducing PUFA to change body fat profile, but emphasize that it is temporary, & when you are "normalized" you can go back to being less strict. kind of like atkins types who stay in induction forever, compared to what he intended, which is to ultimately add carb back in in small increments after you get lean. people just like to get instructions on what to do to be healthy, & may not look at the subtleties of the message, they just want the magic bullet (carbs or PUFA = evil). i agree walnuts are like walnut oil, but it is really difficult for me to eat more than a small handful of nuts, whereas you can glug alot of vegetable oil down much easier, particularly when you are eating fried foods, etc. plus nuts have vitamin E, etc. in them. nut butters & things like almond meal pancakes are similar to oils because you can overdo it really easily, as are salted or flavored nuts (you are just going for the salt). but i find with unsalted raw nuts a little goes a long way. i just can't see getting freaky about occasional toasted walnuts on a salad, or pine nuts in pesto. i mean, how often does one eat pesto, anyhow?
i do agree the latest article that came out is SCARY, the one saying to replace sat fats with PUFAs. they basically say there is no correlation with sat fat & heart disease, then tell you to switch it out….talk about extreme.
to all of you fruit phobes, what do you eat WITH your fruit? how 'bout a big chunk of cheese or other good protein and some fat? would that still make you crazy obsessive about it? i've been eating pineapple and kiwi with a large bowl of yogurt for breakfast and i don't go nuts. but then again maybe i don't have the same kind of adrenal issues. just a thought.
For some it may not be about adrenal issues at all. I prefer eating the fruit by itself, as fruit without the fat is far less addictive. Combining sweet and fat makes a stronger brain-calorie association and a far greater release of opiates in the brain.
This post was so well timed, it's kinda tripping me out. I just got back from a weeks vacation in the desert. Two things I noticed: 1) How much better rested I feel. Usually on vacation my digestion gets messed up during and for some time afterward, which didn't happen this time. I didn't even sleep as much as I wanted and I still feel way more rested. I'm chalking it up to the sunlight.
2) After doing 5 hour hikes in the desert my husband and I were craving butter like nobody's business. Two nights we came back to our cabin, changed our dinner plans from grilling fish to eating pasta with a sauce that contains a whole stick of butter. Maybe we just wanted that natural sun screen.
The other thing I noticed was that all the restaurants seemed to make their food far saltier than I'm used to. I'm not salt phobic by any means, but this was crazy. Even my salt-loving husband was put off by it. I wonder if they aren't trying to fill in for electrolyte loss or something. Anyway it was even easier than normal to dine in.
Other thing I thought I'd throw in. For the first time in my life being in the mountains and flying in a plane did not give me ear pain when changing altitude rapidly. I've always gotten that even when I was little. This combined with having zero sinus pain this far in allergy season is making me think I might have really healed this. Seriously, this fucking rocks. Not having to load up on benedryl and allegra every day is like getting off of parole or something. Sweet.
Amen Jenny. Sunlight and eating real food instead of refined sugary junk changed my life. My seasonal allergies were once legendary. I suffer absolutely none of it now.
Team smith, I've noticed that going fructose free for a while improved some of my health problems quite a lot. I've been able to tolerate it in small amounts since. I still crave my favorite low fructose things like tomatoes and apricots and I usally indulge those cravings first before going to the orange juice. I try to avoid eating PUFAs all the time, but am aware some will get in. It's just unavoidable unless you cook all your own food from scratch. When I do eat fruit, I usually pair it with saturated fat. Strawberries and cream is a classic combo that's very satisfying and decadent. Same with grapes and cheese. I think there's a reason that certain food pairings have been around for ever.
Matt, I totally followed your advice. I brought sunscreen with, but I didn't really use it. I also let my kid play outside for at least a half hour a day without a hat or sunscreen which is practically considered child abuse in Minnesota. He got a little pink, but nothing too bad and he seemed to be very aware of when he'd had enough sun. He'd go sit in the shade or lie down even a little while to recharge.
That's my Jenny! Sunlight can be a little harsh for a Minnesotan after a long winter, but over time the skin becomes well-conditioned to it, and healthier – along with the rest of the body. I haven't used sunscreen since about 2004. Amazing. I never would've believed I could lay out on a sunny day in Hawaii for 2 hours without sunscreen and not get sunburned. But I did just that – sometimes 3-4 times a week (total sun whore). But I will say my skin fared better my first winter there when I was eating much less PUFA than my 3rd year there, when I was guzzling chicken skin and pork fat on a very high fat diet (250+ grams per day).
Now that PUFA's are kept low (I've cut them back by about 75%) I can already tell I'm even better off. Laid out this week some and even though I got slightly pink, no pain, peeling, etc.
I'm starting to think that a lot of the benefit I got from running a lot two years ago came from the fact that I never used sunscreen and I just got so much more sun than I normally would.
In trying to build up my sun tolerance I've started with 15-30 minute stretches where I'm outside without sunscreen or a hat. Though Seeing the women in Palm Springs whose skin looked like leather did kind of freak me out. I want to get enough sun to get the benefits without that Louis Vitton complexion.
OMG, if you lived in FL like i do, you would avoid the sun like the plague. there are so many cute looking women here, & when you get real close you see that they have nice toned bods & dyed hair & leatherette skin. luggage, i tell you! I have also spent alot of time traveling around the globe, & when those folks who live a clean life far away from electricity, fastfood etc get older, they are also little wrinkled prunes (i have seen this in nepal, madagascar, etc). SO ladies, i say if you are at all vain, & who isn't, do not mess with the 'ole sun too much. just enough to get your vit D in, & that is it. love the sat fat theory tho you may, do not bank your future skin on it! guys don't really have to worry, the wrinkles just make them look craggy & sexy. ha ha ha. did you ever see a craggy sexy woman? i rest my case…….
ps, all the anecdotal stories about how this diet cured this, that & the other are fine, but go to ANY diet website, & low carb cured this, & when i eat one grain of carb, i break out with hives, yada yada yada. i take it all with a grain of salt. ever hear of the PLACEBO effect? i want it to work & believe in it, therefore it does? very powerful stuff. after hiking for 5 hours in the sun maybe you were just really hungry. After a long day of exercise, do you want grilled fish or pasta?
@The people who think Africa is not tropical:
Look at a map of the world. Everything between the tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees North of the equator) and the tropic of Capricorn (23.5 South of the equator) is the "tropics". Look at Africa, you will see that almost the entire continent is within the tropics. Not all tropics are tropical islands. Matt's point about humans being very heat-adapted stands, and presumably, the sorts of foods in such an environment also contain heat-resistant saturated fats.
BTW, last night at her talk I asked Sally Fallon about The Milk Cure, which she had referenced in her Real Milk presentation. She said it was great for losing 10 lbs :) and is very healing. She has tried it herself, and recommended doing it in a clinical setting without the stresses of daily life because it is really a detox that can make you very tired…
Then she referred me to Michael's blog!
@Gazelle
BTW, last night at her talk I asked Sally Fallon about The Milk Cure, which she had referenced in her Real Milk presentation. She said it was great for losing 10 lbs :) and is very healing.
…
Then she referred me to Michael's blog!
Other than my post What To Eat In A Crisis, which appeared on Lew Rockwell and caused traffic to go through the roof as a result, my Milk Diet piece has been my most popular post in terms of single day traffic.
Nice to know Sally may have had something to do with that. :-)
I didnt read every comment here, so this may have already been said, but I think this is a great post. It just reinforces the idea that it is healthiest for humans to eat locally produced food. Not just because it is fresher and supporting farmers and all that jazz, but because things that are grown in a certain climate, contain components that support life in that same climate (pretty much what you were saying). Thats why the Inuit could thrive on a diet of 80% animal fat while people in the tropics can thrive on mostly fruit. Diet and climate are very closely related, and my own personal experience confirms this. I have noticed many improvements to my health since I have started eating locally grown foods. This includes raw milk too, I think it may contain certain components that help protect allergies to local pollens and what not (but I might be way off on that). Anyway, great post, I am a new 180 follower and I cant stop reading this stuff.
Excellent article, Matt. It's hilarious how these Paleo gurus believe humans were able to outrun tigers. Perhaps if they were like 12 feet from a tiny cave opening,and the tiger was 80 yards back …….. But on the open plains? hahaha!
Take care,
Raz