Ah yes, the time has come for a collection of videos that demonstrate what 180DegreeHealth clearly isn’t?
Or, to put it another way, and to abide by the first rule of Fat Club, get ready to ‘stick your fingers in your ears.
Without further ado, I give thee a video collection of some of the kookiest nutrition gurus I can find?and you thought I was out there??!!
Gabriel Cousins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gujznrp2iRY&feature=related
Doug Graham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrWihaTBSAI&feature=PlayList&p=1F9CA742213FEC2A&playnext=1&index=54
Woody Harrelson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QAA3S3zK9I&feature=related
John Robbins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq57ByWDxss&feature=PlayList&p=918A8D7988E026EE&index=11
Andy Bellatti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxqzb6H4s3Q&feature=PlayList&p=E521594064A736E5&index=4
David Wolfe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLaIRhOxHyI
Wow, David Wolfe sure looks old for someone born in 1970.
Doug Graham doesn’t look too bad, however. I’ve wondered for some time how he manages as much body mass as he has on a raw vegan diet.
Haha the information they talked about just bounced off my head, you know, as if it were pig head gelatin.
Chlorophyll is good for the brain? Jee, take off your hat Cousins and let's see, I think it's a little too good for your brain, it's making your head grow really big and then your hair just decides it has minimal space to grow. Though it made nice space for your third eye. wudashame
Haha and doug. Oh doug. You and your medical degree. No, it's ok, you don't have to mention you went there to get a degree as a chiropractic. Got a bad back?> youputthe Lime in da coconut, drink em boooth up.
make that 50 limes to 1/100th of a coconut, and run 20 miles (naked in the hott sun) buuuuuu-dee
Thanks; I had a nice laugh to those – as well as a good time getting my slay on
p.s. Bellatti sure does look like he could survive in the wild, no? Oh shit, they don't have calorie information for wild boars and yams, I forgot about that. Mother Nature, I'm counting on you to bring this child's wish come true, let's see some calorie charts.
ok ok I'm done
But I swear Woody must have had more of the hemp and less of the seed going on in his salad.
I actually thought Doug and Woody looked pretty healthy.
Those guys don’t look that unhealthy. In fact, they’ll live longer than most people, but that’s not the point.
The point is that they are out there… way out there.
Woody looks very healthy, but he also behaves like a bipolar child and lives, with Cousins, on some other planet.
Doug Graham, more recently, ain’t lookin’ so hot. I just can’t believe he lives off of hardly anything other than fruit. That is nuts. The fact that his teeth stayed healthy (got healthier I should say) on such a regimen is a good example of how the tooth-diet connection is more complex than many give it credit for.
Anyway, sorry to pick on these guys. They all do renounce processed foods, but there’s just no reason to include saturated fats and animal products in a pile with rancid veggie oils, white flour, and high-fructose corn syrup. These guys could have had some steak all along and been much more grounded with real bodies instead of emaciated ones – particularly Robbins and Cousins.
I hope Woody Harrelson’s kids don’t end up taking the “raw” thing too far, that could be more damaging to younger kids than it is for him to eat that way. But it was fun to watch the wheels turn in his brain when he was quoting the “let medicine be thy food!!” line :)
“Doug Graham, more recently, ain’t lookin’ so hot. I just can’t believe he lives off of hardly anything other than fruit. That is nuts. The fact that his teeth stayed healthy (got healthier I should say) on such a regimen is a good example of how the tooth-diet connection is more complex than many give it credit for.”
Sally Fallon and others on the Weston A. Price Foundation website make ridiculous claims like saying that fruit juice (esp frozen orange juice) will rot your teeth faster than drinking sodas. Yeah, right. They don’t even cite any studies to back them up, but they claim animal tests are available. Even if the studies do exist, they were probably feeding those animals corn oil as their only fat, plus lots of powdered casein, refined sugar, bleached enriched flour, or cornstarch.
I had perfect teeth growing up and drank like a quart of orange juice and a quart of milk a day. My teeth disintegrated in college when I changed my diet, drinking less milk and orange juice, sipping soft drinks, eating energy bars, cereal, junk food, microwave popcorn, doughnuts, fast food, and potato chips. So which was the worse diet? Nobody will ever convince me that orange juice is worse for health or your teeth than sodas, candy, processed wheat, and PUFA-laden junk.
Diet is very complex and people spouting WAPF propaganda are no closer to reality than people like Ornish and Fuhrman. The truth is more nuanced than either of the two sides will admit. The WAPF crowd has people brainwashed that they need to sip cod liver oil, bone broths, and so forth to avoid tooth decay. I agree with Matt, and McCarrison, that it’s more important to avoid toxic foods like refined sugar, PUFA oils, and processed / rancid grains (esp wheat). You can drink orange juice, even frozen concentrate, without getting cavities. The same is not true for Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, and other garbage. (Those poisons are proven to destroy your teeth as fast as crystal meth.)
I suppose most gurus or whatever you want to call them will all think they are closest to the optimal diet if they think they feel good on it or somehow see improvements.
What matters is if they glorify themselves, their theories (even if they make no logical sense), and spread the word like it’s a religion and no one will be saved unless they convert. Totally unwilling to listen to other ideas and other probable sounding advice.
That’s why I enjoy this 180 thing, more then any other diet fad I’ve come across or read about. It’s totally open and general, just like I’ve always tried to be when I was reading about different diets. And the ideas and information is unbelievable, just constantly hits the nail on the head with my experiences.
It seems like people will tend to follow way too often; like blind sheep. But could you blame them? If you feel that terrible, I think anyone would look for anything to try and try to follow it well — they also give up too quickly most of the time before really being a reliable source to refer to. The only thing is that they either don’t have the time to do all the research themselves or just totally lack interest. Even though they wish to be cured — most Americans have a philosophy like that. That they’ll just have to live off of drugs forever because getting sick is normal; it’s just like we’re handfed that ever since we’re born. Personally I may have never found out about saturated fats and other things like rancid vegetable oil if I hadn’t gotten into raw food or veganism because it made me much more interested in food in general. I’m also proof that these things didn’t quite work out, and so I say thanks to these people for that. But that’s not quite what any vegan or vegan raw food guru wants to hear. And it’s a shame that they probably reject anyone who tells them that. That’s just why I have fun laughing at them now – not for their compassion; but for their unwillingness to learn or listen to anything further then they know. HA
And it’s true – juice doesn’t cause tooth decay. This one guy on a raw food board ( a while back ) had been living off of nothing but fruit juice (crazier then Graham) – mostly oranges and watermelon – and claimed his teeth were stronger then ever before. He had pictures, and they were white. I don’t think the dude brushed his teeth. He’s a…liquidarian? And wanted to become breathratarian or something and live off of air. Hm. Anyway – it wasn’t causing him tooth decay. Obviously he wasn’t eating oils and things; But I must say – it’s probably that his diet was not really getting much of anything so nothing was really there to cause a problem. It’s gotta beee pairing it up with the wrong things. Blood glucose and blood sugar are different stories though… unless fats paired with the juice will slow down the rate at which the sugar is absorbed. Or activity level. I have yet to find it to be unnecessary to consume it, even if it could be healthy.
“And it’s true – juice doesn’t cause tooth decay. This one guy on a raw food board ( a while back ) had been living off of nothing but fruit juice (crazier then Graham) – mostly oranges and watermelon – and claimed his teeth were stronger then ever before. He had pictures, and they were white. I don’t think the dude brushed his teeth.”
Brushing your teeth is probably harmful, esp with toxic toothpastes that contain fluoride, aluminum, and other chemicals. Some people I talked to said one reason my teeth were good as a kid is because I didn’t brush them. I also ate a very low sugar diet growing up (maybe 25g a day). My fiber and PUFA intake were extremely low (maybe 5g each a day). I think most fruitarians get into trouble because of eating nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. They might do better to just eat fruits, and maybe do oil-pulling for their teeth. I have heard of a fruitarian who had good teeth – they did oil pulling.
“Anyway – it wasn’t causing him tooth decay. Obviously he wasn’t eating oils and things; But I must say – it’s probably that his diet was not really getting much of anything so nothing was really there to cause a problem. It’s gotta beee pairing it up with the wrong things. Blood glucose and blood sugar are different stories though… unless fats paired with the juice will slow down the rate at which the sugar is absorbed. Or activity level.”
Sugars don’t necessarily raise the blood sugar in the absence of fat (esp PUFAs). I’ve found studies saying that in the absence of fat granulated sugar has no effect on blood sugar or insulin. These studies are conveniently ignored by the low-carb pundits, but I dare anyone to try to gain weight by eating granulated sugar from the bag. I think it would be physically impossible, because it would speed your metabolism up so much due to the lack of PUFAs. However, combining a high-sugar and high-PUFA diet (SAD) is, of course, very fattening. Adding a lot of white flour and animal protein makes it even more fattening.
“In the absence of fat, sucrose produced a decreased FE [Feed Efficiency] in both strains. Animals fed a low-fat, high-sucrose (LH) diet were actually leaner than animals fed a high-complex-carbohydrate diet. Fat was also found to be the critical stimulus for hyper-glycemia and hyper- insulinemia in B/6J mice. In the absence of fat, sucrose had no effect on plasma glucose or insulin.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7752914
Yeah, but I don’t think you would gain weight eating just one type of thing (fats, sugars OR protein). Do you know if people gain weight just by eating polyunsaturated oil alone? I know there are people who are raw vegans who eat a large staple of nuts for their diet as fat. Kind of a..high fat raw diet you could call it.
Brendan Brazier – he’s an iron man (I think) and competes in all sorts of endurance activities and he’s 90% raw vegan. I read his book (while ago) and pretty much everything is made from nuts or grains and a large part of his carbs come from fruit. I pussied out and didn’t try his diet cause of all the fat, and I had been reading Graham’s stuff. haha oh if I could see me now. But anyway, he also exercises his brains out.
Anyway, I doubt anyone could survive on white sugar alone. And that’s the important part.
See in the study you gave it said sugar and fat together are the cause. If both are present, we could probably assume that that’s bad (but perhaps depending on which fats and which sugars are paired would make a difference…). In the study, was it dependent on the type of fat? And how do you explain the fact that some people do experience glucose spikes when consuming fruit or fruit juice alone? Is it that fat in general is in their diet? Because it could be certain people are less tolerant of sugar – perhaps if it’s highly consumed in childhood. And I don’t know if sugar binging would really help or not, because I pretty much did that for 4 months. I probably wouldn’t be able to eat sugar alone today, but I have yet to try that.
I just think about Graham’s book and how he was saying all the diseases were caused by fat, not sugar. How sugar was innocent. But, obviously, (the right kind of) fat is not bad when it occupies a large percentage of diet accompanied by small percentages of carbs and protein. And Graham’s diet probably wouldn’t work or would be fattening if it was high in both nuts and fruit – unless there was a calorie deficient, which is common in people who eat raw food.
Oh yeah; I learned about creamed honey today, my friend was buying some. The lady selling it said it was crystalized; the way she described it reminded me of cheese making, except with honey. Do you know anything about it? Just curious.
“Yeah, but I don’t think you would gain weight eating just one type of thing (fats, sugars OR protein). Do you know if people gain weight just by eating polyunsaturated oil alone?”
I don’t think you could gain weight very easily by eating single foods (not a mix of two or more foods). Eating pure sugar from the bag would be hard, because it’s not a strong or complex flavor. When you mix a lot of foods together (esp refined sugar, refined grains, PUFA oils, animal protein, and alcohol), obesity is likely to occur in many people. Chow diets like fast food and junk food are inherently a lot more fattening than eating each food individually (sugar by itself, starch by itself, fat by itself).
“I know there are people who are raw vegans who eat a large staple of nuts for their diet as fat. Kind of a..high fat raw diet you could call it.”
Nuts and seeds contain anti-nutrients or enzyme inhibitors. Humans can not easily digest high-fiber foods and a lot of the calories are probably wasted or lost via elimination.
“Anyway, I doubt anyone could survive on white sugar alone. And that’s the important part.”
But people say sugar is fattening. There is no evidence to prove that sugar eaten by itself is fattening or that sugar can cause fattening in a self-selected diet, where you eat each food alone. It’s only when sugar is mixed with other food that it can cause obesity and anyone who says otherwise (like Taubes) has not read the medical literature very carefully. There is no evidence that sugar makes you fat, except in the context of high-everything “cafeteria diet” or “rat chow.” Also, it would probably be a lot less damaging to eat granulated sugar dry than mixed with almost any other food.
Matt has quoted Robert McCarrison saying that white rice by itself is better than white rice mixed with butter. To add fat (or protein) to a deficient diet worsens the deficiency. Animals die faster. This creates an awkward situation.
“In the study, was it dependent on the type of fat?”
They probably used PUFA oils, and it may be less of a problem with coconut oil or beef or butter fat. But animal fats with more PUFAs, like pork and chicken, might start contributing to the problem. There are many studies showing that lard would contribute to these problems, while beef fat wouldn’t.
“And how do you explain the fact that some people do experience glucose spikes when consuming fruit or fruit juice alone? Is it that fat in general is in their diet?”
They would fat in their body which could contribute to the lipid peroxidation and inflammation cycle of PUFAs. So the only way to control for this would be to fast animals until their body fat was totally depleted (almost). This is another flaw in many studies. They say something like “saturated fat is inflammatory”, but do not control for the PUFAs in an animal’s body from their prior diet. PUFAs are to blame, including animal foods like bacon and lard, but saturated fat has become a scapegoat for all the problems. Blaming “sugars” and “fructose” is another myth. Natural sugars don’t cause cavities and diseases of civilization IMO. People who blame carbohydrates for modern diseases, esp obesity, are living in a dreamworld. Most people don’t eat carbs without fat. In the absence of fat, the same effects would not occur. Maybe certain types of fat (like coconut oil) would also have a different effect. I challenge anyone to try to gain weigth by eating pure sugar, dry and all by itself. You can’t mix it with anything. Try to gain weight eating fresh raw fruit and fruit juice made of single fruits. (No mixing.) Try to gain weight by eating dry potatoes all alone without butter, cheese, sour cream, or any other food. Good luck.
It’s the high-everything, cafeteria diet that makes people fat, not carbohydrates OR fat OR even calories. And there are a lot of studies proving this.
Yeah, I mean I get that. I was saying the same thing – mixing it is what counts. That’s why there’s people like Bear, who looks towards carbs as a problem, and Graham, who looks towards fat as a problem. And neither nutrient sources are the “bad” guys and can often be paired incorrectly.
But I’m still just wondering if you think eating fruit alone is a healthy diet. And are fruit and sugars practical as a carbohydrate staple for people who eat mostly meat and fat — or is it another rule that they must only eat a highly saturated diet. It just doesn’t seem probable for people in other cultures. And I realize we’re in the 21st century – but wouldn’t it make sense that people would begin to see problems who are still living on a native diet (that may not be extremely low in polyunsaturated fats) if environment is such a big contributor?
I still don’t understand why blood sugar would spike — are you saying someone would have to fast to near starvation in order to get rid of polyunsaturates in order to consume sugar and remain stable?
Matt:
You are pretty out there at times yourself. Your theories about germs and parasites are pretty much the same as Guy-Claude Burger of Instincto fame. Would recommend reading up on what happened to the American Indians (and other aboriginal people) when they encountered disease carrying Europeans. Could be that the grain and sugar diet is better for staving off smallpox, etc. even as it rots teeth…
But I read your blog regardless because you have lots of good info, and in many other respects have kept your mind open. Just beware of overstating your case. Your 180 degree diet recos need some more validation before you can consider them proven. One young person getting trim and healthy is not generalizable proof.
You also write very well.
Bear’s a joke. If carbs are the problem, why does he eat 60% fat and 40% protein? He also said he eats 1/2 as much meat as he did in the past, although he’s highly active. Sounds like a slow metabolism to me. Stefansson said to eat like 80/20 or 75/25. Like Matt said, Bear has probably reduced his ability to handle fat, so he is left with a high-protein diet.
If you’re healthy, maybe you can eat fat and carbs from fresh foods without being overweight or having other problems. The more sedentary you are, the less likely you will be healthy, IMO. Our body needs to move to work right. Matt said when he sits all day he feels toxic and develops a bad odor. This is due to congestion of toxins in lymph, I think. You need short walks and random bouts of high-intensity exercise to be truly healthy.
Most native diets were low in PUFAs, esp the more healthy tribes. Eating too much PUFAs gave the Eskimos nose-bleeds which lasted for days, 22-yr-old grandmothers, and bleeding strokes. Charles now claims that “all carbohydrates will kill you and cause dental caries.” How absurd can you get? Lumping carbs together like an apple is the same as HFCS? Like a potato is the same as bleached enriched flour?
Plus, whatever you eat will kill you. No food promises eternal life. Stefansson said the Eskimos aged fast, and he felt he was aging faster when he at eall meat for a year. Any diet is a trade-off. If the Eskimos had access to natural carbs, they would have eaten them and remained healthy. Blaming modern health problems on carbs is totally stupid.
“I still don’t understand why blood sugar would spike — are you saying someone would have to fast to near starvation in order to get rid of polyunsaturates in order to consume sugar and remain stable?”
I’m saying that might be a factor if one has a lot of excess weight and they have eaten a high-PUFA diet in the past (most modern people have). Most people are out of shape, too. Their muscles are insulin resistant due to inactivity. That’s very easy to solve with short, high-intensity exercise (Art De Vany, Cross-Fit, Tabata training). Natural sugars give me stable energy and calm mood. Zero-carb makes me depressed, anxious, and fretful. I don’t see any reason natural sugars would be a bad food. They are better than starches, IMO, because they are less inflammatory, don’t slow down metabolism, and they let the body make Mead Acid (20:3 n9), which replaces the NON-essential “EFAs.”
Diet is more complex than simple-minded gurus pretend. For example, the new myth is that “small dense cholesterol causes heart disease.” That’s not true. Kitavan people have small dense cholesterol and they don’t have heart disease. The cause of heart disease is eating refined sugar and PUFA vegetable oils, which causes a chronic inflammatory, and pro-oxidative state. You can have small dense LDL and be totally healthy if your diet is like the people in Kitava. If you are eating refined sugar and corn oil, then you’re in trouble. Low-carb pundits are making erroneous arguments, like saying “carbs cause heart disease.” That’s half-truth at best. REFINED carbs may indeed cause heart disease, and eating vegetable oil will most likely accelerate it. But you can’t extrapolate from that to saying a person eating the Kitava Diet would get heart disease or that the diets studied by Price and McCarrison were unhealthy. However, that’s what low-carb gurus do, with their illogical argument about the danger of LDL Pattern B.
Just read this article by Charles to see how clueless he is toward reality. He is looking at studies of people eating SAD, and extrapolating it to say that “carbs” in general are the problem. Yeah, right. Refined carbs mixed with PUFA oils are a problem, not fresh whole foods.
http://blog.zeroinginonhealth.com/?p=461
I believe Matt said he felt toxic when he was on his FUMP diet and sat a lot. And he doesn’t push exercise out there so much, explaining it causes him inflammation when done in excess —
Even in one of Stephan’s recent posts he talks about how a lot of cultures are very sedentary, yet not overweight or unhealthy.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/01/exercise-and-bodyfat.html
I do agree, though, that it feels much better to get out and walk at least 2 miles a day.
Anyway, do you know anyone else specifically who tolerates food like you, or what? Because I still don’t know what you classify as “healthy” and who could eat sugars alone. If you’re interested, I am trying out starches only right now and zero sugars. If in a few months I see improvements in thyroid, I plan on trying out your sugar as carbs approach to compare and see if I get glucose spikes (also like Matt says happens to him – but really, is he that unhealthy?). What is it that you recommend in order for you to look at my results if I were to try it in the future in a way that will not be blamed for faulty additives, such as high polyunsaturated fat levels and such?
p.s. don’t you go blamin’ this on young and healthy, CSM; look up some old posts and there’s more insight to his old life there; It’s not like he’s eating big macs and claiming it’s the holy grail because he’s thin (like a 18 year old male who is constantly hungry might; i know some people) — these are totally health-giving whole foods he’s eating, as discussed in books by many a scientists. Tons of people want to look at genetics, but it’s just much more complex then that (as seen by Price..). I’m another example of that; it’s how I eat that controls what happens 90% of the time mentally, physically, emotionally..etc. It is the food DUde
Excess exercise (like running marathons) is unhealthy, IMO, but I”m interested in optimal health. Like CSM said, Matt does not prove that his diet is optimal or it will give him the same benefits as doing high-intensity exercise while sitting on the couch. I do high-intensity work like running up 20 flights of stairs or doing jumps as high and as fast as possible to exhaustion. I have to work crazy hard to get sweaty and winded. Shoveling snow or digging dirt is effortless. PUFAs reduce aerobic energy, as Ray Peat has noted in his articles. When you really drop PUFAs low (like 1-3% of calories), you can run faster, harder, and longer. Even after a really hard work-out, my pulse and blood pressure are barely elevated and quickly return to normal. Hunter-gatherers never sat around like modern people. They were doing high-intensity bursts of exercise, combined with lots of walking and so on.
Many people find that starches spike the blood sugar more than natural sugars. At any rate, it’s meaningless if they don’t do high-intensity exercise like the body was designed for. The limit of intensity is simply how fast your heart will beat. The less often you push the heart to its maximum intensity, the weaker your heart will get every year. And the rest of the body is the same. Matt might be able to maintain some muscle now, but check back in about 30 years to see what happens if he sits on the couch all day and walks a few miles a day. People who exercise at high-intensity will see their bodies age slower than people who don’t.
Exercise isn’t inflammatory to me. There is no substitute for explosive power, if you want to remain young. Short distance sprinters age more slowly than endurance athletes. (Running distances over a half mile or so = endurance, assuming you are running at maximum intensity.) I want to be more than just healthy on the outside and slowly decaying inside. Stephan says that high-intensity interval training or HIIT is superior to what Mark Sisson has called “chronic cardio” – running on the treadmill for hours a day. Better to use 300 Calories in 10 minutes a day than to use 600 Calories in an hour. But Stephan says nothing beats a good diet. That is wrong. A good diet combined with weights nad interval training beats a good diet with only moderate activity.
Yeah, I mean, I can’t really say anything because I haven’t tried it. You do that everyday though? Or just every so often. Because even people limit it to high intensity like 4 times a month, give or take, and still see great results.
You never answered about the sugars, though. Do you combine your sugars with your meals, eat them alone, what? If you want people to look at what you’re saying, give some advice or something towards what you think a diet should be. It’s not just about eliminating things. We could go on eliminating everything till you’ve got nothing but meat (oh wait, that happened) or fruit (oh damn, that too). Or even fiber (yep). But what else do you have to say – I always feel like you just repeat yourself and skim the surface into which everyone already knows (that vegetable oils, fiber and sugar together are bad; HIIT exercise is good; and i know you don’t prefer starches, but sugars like juice and honey). So please, elaborate some mo’
chlOe:
I have read the entire blog. As I said, I find it very informative and entertaining. And yes, I think Matt is onto some things.
That said, extrapolations from a collection of studies on various aspects of a diet, combined with successful personal experimentation, is not sufficient proof for the general case. It is, however, justification for more experimentation by more people.
Insufficient proof is not disproof. It is, however, reason to throw in some of the weasel words common in scientific discourse.
Animals die of disease in a state of nature. Heart attacks did happen prior to the twentieth century. The Amerindians were by most accounts physically handsome, yet they were devastated by exposure to European germs. (Corn responsible??)
And Matt deserves credit for noting successes by people who have done diets very different from his.
But I throw in critiques above in an attempt to vaccinate against gurunia. (The Guy-Claude Burger disease theory is a State 2 symptom.)
You don’t have to do interval training a lot to blow aerobics out of the water. I saw an article by Clarence Bass citing a study where one group exercised for just two MINUTES a day at high intensity, and they only exercised 6 days in two weeks. Another group did no exercise (control). The high intensity group increased their endurance almost 100%, even though they did no endurance training and rested for most of the days (8 out of 14). I would not do intervals every day, I would rest 2-3 days at least. Also, I would not use as long a rest period as this study did. Shorter rest periods are better.
Sprints Build Endurance!
Tabata’s interval routine seems the most effective. 20 seconds at maximum speed, 10 seconds of active recovery. At first, I used a watch with a count-down timer, set to count 20 seconds repeatedly with a 10 second alarm between repeats. Timex IronMan can do this, I think – probably any watch with a count-down timer. When the alarm goes off, slow down, but keep exercising at a moderate intensity. When the alarm stops, increase the speed. You should be out of breath after 8-10 sets. If not, increase the intensity by going up-hill or adding resistance.
I think it’s best to eat some sugar with every meal – fruit, juice, really raw or “unheated” honey, maple syrup, milk, or root veggies (like carrots or beets). If I just eat starches, I get a stuffy nose about 90-120 minutes later. Eating 1/2 a cup of grape juice or a few raisins or a tablespoon of honey will get rid of that stuffy nose instantly. Starches may also cause inflammation sometimes.
What I’m saying is that it’s best not to eat only starches like Matt used to say. Peronsally, I wouldn’t eat much of them, if any. Sugars are anti-inflammatory and starches are pro-inflammatory. They have totally different effects, even though some people will say “but starches just turn into glucose.” Many studies prove that feeding people starches doesn’t do the same thing as feeding them glucose or mixed sugars. For one thing, the body will make significantly less Mead Acid, MUFAs, and SFAs from starch than it will from sugar. Mead Acid is better than the omega-6 and omega-3 PUFAs. It’s omega-9 fat derived from oleic acid or saturated fat or carbohydrates or protein. Young animals have higher levels of Mead Acid, due to breast-feeding and the diet they receive in the womb (low in PUFAs, high in SFAs, with sugars, and no starches).
Here’s an article citing some studies on the benefits of Mead Acid and deficiency of the “essential” fatty acids. The best way to increase Mead Acid is to eat very little PUFAs and starches.
Re: Can Mead acid substitute for EFAs or should they be promoted to the status of vitamins?
Chloe: “I always feel like you just repeat yourself and skim the surface into which everyone already knows (that vegetable oils, fiber and sugar together are bad; HIIT exercise is good; and i know you don’t prefer starches, but sugars like juice and honey).”
But not everyone knows that “sugar mixed with vegetable oil” is the real cause of modern disease. Some people blame it all on carbs, putting unrefined carbs in the same class with the refined junk. Taubes dismisses the damage of PUFA oils, based on what I’ve read from Stephan and other people who contacted him. Gary dismisses the proven harm of PUFA oils, which were increasing in the diet at the same time as heart disease. He treats carbs as the scapegoat for everything, often ignoring the difference between refined carbs and unrefined, which Matt fully acknowledges (as does anyone else with credibility).
My point is that nobody gets fat eating dry sugar from the bag, by itself. They are mixing sugar with other foods, most often PUFA oils, trans fatty acids, and other modern concoctions. People mostly live like lab rats, to quote Art DeVany. They eat lab chow (fast food and/or junk food), rather than fresh foods with ONE ingredient. I would say that sugar eaten with fruit would be a lot less fattening and unhealthy than sugar in the form of cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, and other junk. But people like Taubes and Charles act like it’s all the same. I guarantee it’s not the same to eat sugar by itself as to mix it with fat and/or protein, as most people nowadays do.
People on the WaiSays diet have to *add* sugar to maintain their weight, because the rest of their diet is fresh raw food and they don’t eat much protein or fat. Guys like Gary and Charles refuse to see the nuances of reality, that there is a lot more than one factor required to get obesity, heart disease, cancer, or tooth decay. Many people eat lots of carbs and don’t brush their teeth and don’t suffer tooth decay. So, I agree with Matt, “the tooth-diet connection is more complex than many give it credit for.” It’s not as simple as saying you have to eat 95% meat to avoid tooth decay, which is what Charles says. You can avoid cavities by eating very little meat, lots of fruits, vegetables, juices, milk, and honey. To say you have to eat 95% meat to prevent cavities is the mark of an ignorant and dogmatic extremist.
CSM – I don’t see why you need to defend the germ theory. It has plenty of people defending it without you. It is called a theory because it has never been proven, and many other scientists disagreed with the germ theory, like Claude Bernard and Antoine Bechamp. Pasteur supposedly said on his deathbed “The microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.” Put in other words, healthy people don’t get sick. If you destroy your body’s homeostasis with toxic food, drugs, sleep deprivation, or sunlight deprivation, then you have more risk of developing disease.
It’s true that animals die of disease in nature, but how much of it is due to the fact they are being exposed to junk food and pollution from civilization? You can not say they would have gotten sick in a natural environment far away from cities and human populations and pollution from upstream sources. Maybe the Indians were devastated by European diseases, because the Europeans brought them their refined foods, alcohol, etc. Europeans died from the Black Death, so their diet gave them no immunity to that. But why did certain people survive the Plague, although they were exposed to the same germs? Perhaps they ate a better diet, lived a natural lifestyle, had less stress, etc. Disease is multi-factorial, of course. But still you can’t deny that some people survived Plague, even though they were exposed to the germs. Why would that be?
Guy-Claude Burger had health problems on his diet, based on what I’ve heard. His wife died at a young age of cancer, and he was arrested for pedophilia several times. He also had rapidly growing skin tumors, which “receded and disappeared when the amounts of raw meat in his diet were reduced to small amounts.” He was eating high-quality meat, so there goes the idea that meat prevents cancer. The Bear got throat cancer while eating lots of grass-fed Australian meat.
An Ex-Instincto’s Guide to Instinctive Eating
From what I understand basically is that fatty acids are mostly used for brain function and nervous system; They do tests on actual infants and if they are deficient in linolenic or linoleic acids, something develops wrong, such as a decline in DHA in the retina and brain (deficiency in linolenic (omega-3) only) as well as altered learning behaviors and decreased visual sense.
Also, they did studies on women who had anorexia nervosa and discovered they were not EFA deficient but they're mead acid was low (this would make sense to us, after reading about mead acid – but the person writing about it says that this is confusing to them – most likely thinking mead acid is bad since obviously during the infant's deficiency, mead acid rose as they saw effects from the deficiency, most likely causing some blame on the mead acid and not simply the deficiency)
And not too surprisingly, infants fed safflower oil based formula develop deficiencies. [did you hear lately that they are trying to prevent obesity by giving infants 1% milk formula..slightly off topic but, messed up anyway]
So it's not quite as simple as just not eating omega 6 and omega 3; I think omega 3 definitely should be recognized more then 6 considering the problems they discover in infants without this fatty acid specifically, even with mead acid rising. Unless they were to feed them straight up mead acid (is that what you were saying they're normal diet otherwise is?) – which my next question would be, where is mead acid found in food? Animal flesh? I've heard of it being high in some nuts (I think macadamia) but it must be in other things as well.
Also – food to the fetus/infant can also be deficient in certain omega acids such as o-3, which effects them.
http://books.google.com/books?id=MlA_OpfsFegC&pg=PA640&lpg=PA640&dq=omega+9+mead+acid+sources&source=web&ots=Y5I0YLE9E2&sig=RGwhfagxadQdMaWwcvo1tbx_des&hl=en&ei=riGQSdCPFp3etgfw4MmgCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA651,M1
(page 651 ^^^)
there's some other interesting studies in there as well about further studies on deficiencies of EFAs
As for the exercise – perhaps it is the fact that you're high intensity training allows you to be able to more efficiently store glucose and be more stable with it. If you were to stop exercise and limit to only walking (no active sitting) perhaps the starch would not cause inflammation, and even you might tolerate sugar less? Even activity level can contribute to how you eat effects you and how you pair it – similar to your philosophy of how pairing certain foods together is a large part of what may cause problems.
CSM; I think most if not any or all experiments are subject to more experimentation. It's just how science works. Nothing is really ever proven.
Animals in captivity tend to outlive the wild ones, also, and you rarely if ever see an obese animal or one with diabetes in the wild, or in captivity if fed properly.
How do you know if the Native Americans weren't simply sharing food with the new settlers – therefor succumbing to their illnesses. Just like when Price was studying a healthy group of them – they explained to him that they would not eat the "white mans" food and new that it caused problems among their race.
I don't think Matt's saying his diet is perfect for everyone, as different people have different issues. But overall, most healthy people or people who have similar problems to him should be able to heal or flourish on such a diet as his. I think we all know no one thing is ever perfect – which is why most things he talks about with food are generally speaking and he is definitely one to encourage experimentation with yourself.
Also, refined foods happened prior to the 20th century, too, not just heart attacks.
Ray Peat has discussed Mead Acid in some articles and the Scientific Debate forum talks a lot about it. It’s wrong to say someone is “deficient” just because they have elevated Mead Acid. Infants are all deficient by that criteria, esp if they are breastfed, and their mothers are not eating most vegetable oils. The need for omega-3 and omega-6 (if any) is tiny and nobody is in danger of deficiency unless they’re eating refined sugar, egg white, and cornstarch almost exclusively. Chris Masterjohn says the need for PUFAs is at most 0.1-0.5% of calories for infants and maybe as much as 1% for pregnant women. Most get several times that much and are in no danger of deficiency.
Safflower oil causes disease, because it is high-PUFA oil, and it has a very high ratio of omega-6 (like 255:1). The same problems would not be caused by natural coconut oil, which has no omega-3. They cause deficiency by feeding hydrogenated coconut oil, which is not natural. Fresh coconut oil (76 degree melt) won’t cause deficiencies, although it only has like 1-2% omega-6 and no omega-3. Animals fed natural coconut oil develop fine.
“Brain tissue is very rich in complex forms of fats. The experiment (around 1978) in which pregnant mice were given diets containing either coconut oil or unsaturated oil showed that brain development was superior in the young mice whose mothers ate coconut oil. Because coconut oil supports thyroid function, and thyroid governs brain development, including myelination, the result might simply reflect the difference between normal and hypothyroid individuals. However, in 1980, experimenters demonstrated that young rats fed milk containing soy oil incorporated the oil directly into their brain cells, and had structurally abnormal brain cells as a result.”
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/coconut-oil.shtml
Chloe: “As for the exercise – perhaps it is the fact that you’re high intensity training allows you to be able to more efficiently store glucose and be more stable with it. If you were to stop exercise and limit to only walking (no active sitting) perhaps the starch would not cause inflammation, and even you might tolerate sugar less?”
But why would I want to live a lifestyle that was less natural and healthy with a more limited diet? It is not healthy to sit motionless all day. Active sitting’s the perfect compromise between activity and inactivity, IMO. You have to hold up your body with the legs and core muscles and not just sink into a chair. Sitting on a couch or easy chair or an executive type office chair degrades health in my experience. There is no reason to think they would enhance health, since there’s nothing like them in nature.
Primitive people didn’t have easy chairs or couches, AFAIK. They spend their free time squatting, not sitting on big easy chairs or office chairs. That is also a reason they had better digestion – they didn’t use modern toilets. People claim fiber was what protected them, but there are other variables like Matt says. Not just that they ate unrefined foods, but they squatted frequently throughout the day, esp during defecation. A lot of the modern digestive problems can be traced to modern sit-down toilets.
http://www.naturesplatform.com/health_benefits.html
Nice. Those are cool studies. I agree, it’s probably that too many people are eating too much omega 6 during pregnancy (along with other things), and that is probably causing more problems then anything. And you’re right, we don’t really know for sure what causes anything. But there is some pretty good evidence out there, none the less..
But not every native culture is extremely active; and lounging on some buffalo skin or what have you is probably not that different from lounging in a chair. Not everyone squats only. You cannot ignore the fact that there are potentially lazy and healthy cultures out there. Also, not every native culture only eats sugars from fruit and honey, as those are seasonal things; they are not always available. Who knows; it could be that taking time to lounge more often could be extremely beneficial. I know it’s relaxing. More so then constantly being up and around or balancing on a chair. No offense, of course. But still, if you have yet to try it, I still think you shouldn’t point blame towards starches and praise sugar even if you think lack of exercise is bad – being that really could be of significance. Because your diet is just as limiting as eating only starches and no sugar. And also having to be active most of the day.
Regarding the Indians: they died of diseases well before they adopted European foods. Disease played a vital role in Cortez’ conquest of Mexico. Some of the Indian tribes encountered by Lewis and Clark were gone from disease by the time settlers arrived. Squanto allied himself with the Pilgrims because his tribe had been wiped out by disease before the Pilgrims landed. (European diseases were spreading from the Spanish settlements.)
Innoculations played a role in the Revolutionary War. Historically, infectious disease killed more soldiers than actual battle in most wars between civilizations. The gathering of troops into close quarters kills.
The germ theory of disease is a full-fledged theory because it has withstood the test of repeated experiment. Yes, some people are hardy enough to survive exposure without succumbing. In many cases, it’s simply a matter of getting a small enough exposure at first to act as a natural vaccination; i.e., the immune system has a chance to fortify against the bug in question before bug count gets high enough to cause illness.
I was being a bit sarcastic about European diet conferring immunity. Exposure conferred immunity. Whether diet helped or harmed is purely speculative. What can be said is that the diets of the Amerindians, while conferring handsome physiques, did not confer disease resistance.
Another data point: most primitive peoples have medicine men. Ergo, they got sick even before exposure to civilization.
—
Back to theory: most people confuse theory with hypothesis. A hypothesis is an informed speculation based upon casual observation or philosophical reasoning. A theory is a hypothesis that has been subjected to experiment and was not disproven.
The 180 degree diet is not yet a theory. It is a hypothesis, based upon much reasearch as well as a philosophy that assumes that natural is better. It can gain the status of theory if it is tested on a sizable number of subjects with beneficial results well above the placebo noise floor. (Cannot do double blind on diet, alas.)
Currently, we have strong scientific evidence that the 180 degree diet makes Matt Stone more healthy. Given genetic and environmental variations in people, it is premature to call it a theory that all/most people would benefit.
On the other hand, the diet only hypothesis of disease is largely disproven. Instinctos can get cancer and parasites. Primitives can get smallpox, etc. Wild animals get sick. In nature, antelope get cured of disease by getting eaten by lions — the natural analog of chemotherapy or Dutch socialized medicine.
But I don’t have to be active most of the day. I only started active sitting like two years ago. I have never been a big starch eater – usually one meal per day at most, and always with some sugar like carrots or beets or milk or honey or fruit. Daily walking, intervals, and weights would be enough. Active sitting enhances health, though
You say maybe laziness would be healthy, but maybe standing on your feet 8 hours would be healthier. Have you tried that? Not standing in one place, but moving a lot. Seth Roberts mentioned that in one of his articles, how he found that when he stood for 8 hours a day he had better sleep. Active people, esp those who are doing high-intensity explosive exercise, are healthier all around than people who do nothing more challenging than walking and carrying their groceries. Guys like Michael Phelps could probably eat pizza, beer, ice cream, and chocolate everyday without any health problems.
Just because a tribe was thin and didn’t have some diseases while being sedentary doesn’t prove any thing. I would rather be as fit as Art DeVany or Mark Sisson, from doing short hard exercise and long walking and active sitting. The body is only as fit as it needs to be and there is no way sedentary tribes will be able to compete with Art and Mark, or people like Jack LaLanne for that matter. What was their level of fitness at 94 years? That’s what I want to know, not whether you can be thin and healthy at 30, then die at 60 or 70 from a heart attack, in your sleep. The heart’s a muscle and it thrives from short, random, and intense exercise (like play).
Primitive people and poor people around the world do squat a lot, because it is more comfortable than sitting on ground. Mark Sisson has talked about this, it’s called the third-world squat, and a lot of people spend hours of their day just doing a full squat like that.
http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php't=25095
Here’s a vide of Mark Sisson showing his sprint work-out and the full squat. Mark calls it the “indigenous people stretch” used by “all people around the world who don’t have sofas, and don’t have chairs, and don’t have beds…” This is how they rest, not sitting in chairs or lying on the ground or sitting down. They can do this all day, because they’re in better shape than modern lazy people. They did not sit on couches, chairs, beds, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWiE0CNpoEk
Price noted in the tribes he witnessed they had no need for a medicine man, there was none. However, in modernized cities there were dentists and doctors.
And I did not say all or most every person [in the world]. I said people who can relate to similar experiences or have similar problems that have been covered here would most likely benefit from a diet similar to the one often brought up – natural whole foods, and animal products.
Also; I am not sure what started small pox or what kind of disease it is and so I cannot comment on that. I do know, however, that most deadly diseases that are killing most of our population today are not natural things that occur in nature. Animals don’t die of heart attacks. However, animals are also not always given the opportunity to be completely at peak health all the time. We often see starvation in the wild, but that is not necessarily something people have to go through, and we can do much to prevent that, obviously. I think that is the basis of this blog – to tackle unnatural diseases with natural food. How often animals really are effected by disease is also almost impossible to figure out. It could be an extremely small percentage; and also the fact that they could not be completely nourished when they get diseased and therefor more susceptible. Just think about what McCarrison did with all those animals in his studies…
Nope I haven’t tried standing all day and walking around for 8 hours but I plan on experimenting with it in the future.
Until then, I’m still skeptical.
CSM: “Historically, infectious disease killed more soldiers than actual battle in most wars between civilizations. The gathering of troops into close quarters kills.”
This is a correlation. You can not prove that simply being in close quarters will cause disease. There are other variables here, like most armies are fed on grains with very little meat or animal foods. I would like to see evidence that a tribe eating NO grains, NO refined sugars, and NO very little polyunsaturated fat will suffer disease the same way. I’ve heard the Eskimos had poor immunity due to all the omega-3 they ate, so I do not think their diet would be optimal.
Disease is multi-factorial. It’s not the crowded conditions, but the crowding and poor diet and stress and bad hygiene and constitution, etc. The germ theory is a theory, not a fact. There are many other factors that come into play.
I believe one reason the native diets do not confer disease resistance is they’re high in omega-3 fats, which are known to be immune-suppressive. If they didnt’eat as much omega-3 fats (or overall PUFAs), they would be more resistant to disease. People were exposed to Black Plague from spouses sleeping in the same bed, where one got sick and hte other didn’t. There is more going on than inoculation. They were immune to the disease. Some people have promiscuous unprotected sex and do not get any sexual diseases. Others will get sick from sharing food.
The “germ theory” has never been proved, and never will be proved, because there are too many confounding variables, like diet and lifestyle and hygiene. A person doing the things could have unprotected sex, eat food after sick people, breathe in germs from people coughing / sneezing on them, never bathe, and still not get sick. Diet can cause immune suppression. The omega-3 fats are used in transplant cases to suppress the immune system. All of this is well-known. And it may be one factor in why some primitive groups were known to have poor immunity. The grains some were eating might have been another factor in their demise. That is why it’s silly to extrapolate from primitives to know what is a healthy diet in today’s crowded, polluted, stressful world. The diet that was healthy for a small group living in isolation may not be the same healthy diet for someone living in Los Angeles or Mexico City.
“Also, not every native culture only eats sugars from fruit and honey, as those are seasonal things; they are not always available.”
But they could be preserved. Honey lasts forever. I disagree with the notion that primitives binged on fruit or honey when it was available. I don’t think healthy people binge. Bingeing is an indication of poor nutrition. Like you mentioned a study that found anorexics have lowered levels of Mead Acid. That makes sense. I think eating disorders are not simply a matter of being obsessed with thin-ness. They are hormonal or chemical disorders, caused by eating the modern diet of PUFA vegetable oils, refined sugar, HFCS, and refined (or rancid) grains, esp bleached and enriched white flour. I don’t binge, so why should I see bingeing as natural? I can drink half a cup of grape juice as easily as one cup or two cups, because I have normal blood sugar and insulin. Ben and Matt and others don’t, IMO. So, they can either live with a “sweet-free” diet forever or tackle their problems head-on and perhaps overcome them.
I also am skeptical of bingeing – it need not be done if there are food sources available. The fact that honey is preservable is a good point. And I also agree that anorexics most likely experience that high feeling of euphoria (as well as some fruitarians) – the food (or rather, lack of) most certainly will effect nervous system and brain function.
Like I said; I have yet to try your method. I’d like to see if my blood sugar would remain stable while using sugars, since I am a person who did eat nothing but sugar for 4 months practically; but have not eaten it since I started switching to high fat. That might give further insight…
It could also be you’re form of exercise, like I had said before, is helping you to be free of insulin problems and glucose problems. But you also mention you have problems with starch where others do not. So it is all still quite questionable. It’s either them that can’t tolerate sugar, or you who can’t tolerate starch (both as a majority of diet; not small amounts).
Fruit can also be preserved, as can most other foods. So, the theory that natives only ate fruit in season can’t be proven absolutely. Also there are other sources of sugar like root vegetables, milk, and maple syrup. Maybe other things.
Not many people here seem to be eating a “majority starch” diet without problems. Matt ate tiny amounts and now he doesn’t seem to be eating much at all. I think a diet like the Kitava people could indeed be healthy for modern people with health problems, but like Matt, I don’t know if it would be ideal.
I have no problem with starches if I eat some sugars with them. But because I am leery of mixing foods like that, I think it best to just limit the starches, and mostly eat foods that are edible raw (as in paleo foods and some dairy products). Starch was not essential to any tribe’s health, unless they couldn’t find enough fat or carbs (or alcohol) to meet their energy needs. I don’t know of any health problems caused by eating natural sugar or prevented by eating starch.
Hm; yeah but still — fruit is not global and neither is honey. Roots are almost everywhere – though I don’t know how many of them are considered sweet or starchy. Just because it is preservable doesn’t mean people chose to do that, either.
Also – maybe it is not the sugar in the fruit or honey that is curing your stuffy nose, but other things in the honey and fruit. Unless, perhaps, you have tried it with white sugar. Is it the fact that you ate the starch alone that gave you a problem with your nose, or do you have different results eating them with different things? How sure are you about that? Because I don’t get stuffy noses when I eat starches with things.
And I haven’t heard of a predominately sugar-eating community – but I have heard of many starch based ones, like pima indians, or the swiss that Price studied with their stone-ground rye bread. These were sort of staple foods for them, other than the swiss’s dairy (with by my understanding supposedly fat soluble vitamins help to digest starch — and starches really aren’t the show here, they are just looked towards more so then sugar). I still have yet to hear of primitives who get most of their carbs as sugar (got some sources? I am interested)
Unless it is a tribe in Africa, which I’ve witnessed them just kind of reaching into a hole in the ground and grabbing some honey. Though I doubt they do that every day – I wouldn’t want to if the outcome was some bees stinging the hell out of me. Plus to feed all their community, would there really be enough honey and fruit all around to preserve?
There very well be other techniques to get it as well, though. I just don’t know if they would go to all that trouble constantly. Then again, I don’t know how often some may dig for roots either. And grounding rye is probably another big task. Anyway, I still feel fruit and things like honey would be eaten in small quantities or not everyday compared to how people incorporated starches into their food worldwide. Unless, again, you know of people who do eat sugars as staple food everyday (other then yourself of course)…
The amount is most likely also important. How much starch you eat could effect the outcome, just like how much sugar is eaten could effect the outcome; and what they are paired with as well. Would you say you are someone who eats under 100 carbohydrates a day or more? And I’m assuming it’s mostly as sugar?
I also found this about honey
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5070/is_9_10/ai_n29373466/pg_1
I found it interesting that even lions enjoy it and it is a staple for the bear. It seems more medicinal then food, however. As it could potentially “cover up problems” – and not actually fix them – such as your stuffy nose or the dogs that the lady owned whose problems returned upon leaving out the honey.
C
with respect to all concerned, I dont think B (or M) has definitive answers, anymore than the rest of us. Perhaps some interesting observations, yes.
Maybe even help to pull the rug from under various dietary dogmas (though there is nothing entirely new here either)
Certainly, some commentators are more vociferous and seemingly assured of their beliefs.
It is so easy to make something of observations, particularly on the strength of an individual conveying learned authority.
One can easily fall into the trap of replacing dietary guru X with guru Y.
There is freedom to be had in the let go also.
Kind wishes, J
Chloe: “Just because it is preservable doesn’t mean people chose to do that, either.”
The Eskimos preserved berries and things based on some things I’ve read. The idea that they only ate fruits in season is a lie. They preserved them in fat or froze them. Why wouldn’t people preserve foods they eat that can be preserved? None of these people had any dogma against carbs like certain zealots today.
“As it could potentially “cover up problems” – and not actually fix them – such as your stuffy nose or the dogs that the lady owned whose problems returned upon leaving out the honey.”
She was talking about allergies, that if she didn’t give her dogs local honey for a few weeks their allergies returned. My feeling is that the benefit isn’t due to the pollen, but the simple sugars. Maybe she was feeding them high-PUFA food like chicken necks and pork belly. Those will perpetuate allergies, IMO. The solution is to minimize PUFAs and starches and to eat some natural sugars. The amount will vary by activity level. An active person might need 80-120g of carbs a day, while inactive people need hardly any. And not all people do well on low-carb diets, so that must also be considered
If you do eat starches, potatoes are the best option due to lack of PUFAs and low fiber (cut and throw away the peel). The next best choices would be pearl tapioca and organic white sushi rice and perhaps cornstarch if you want something easier, which can be used in more of a medicinal way with less binge-ability.
Cold showers are also beneficial. I feel much better after a cold shower than hot shower or hot bath. More energized. More happy. More healthy. One reason might be that hot water makes your pores open, so they absorb toxins from the water. Plus, there is no steam from the cold. I start as cold as I can stand and gradually try to go lower. Tolerance improves, because the body grows stronger. What seems hard at first soon becomes easy.
It’s like active sitting. After a month, you don’t even think about it. You could watch a movie while sitting on a balance ball or a Swopper or Muvman, Just like a third-world person can do the full squat for hours out of every day, while modern people struggle to do it at all. It’s an easy thing once you adapt. You will be a lot healthier from squatting, intervals, active sitting, hiking, and weights than you will from sitting motionless all day in a chair or on the couch.
J
Matt and Bruce have more experience; i discuss with them what they have experienced; therefor they are not at all like a guru, x or y, because they aren’t just telling me “this is right, this is wrong, do it” – and I certainly don’t follow [blindly], though I am one to have strong inspiration on topics of interest, such as experimentation with diet. that is why i enjoy conversing here; because it is inspiring to me, personally, and a big part of my interest. Not that I put anyone more on a pedastool then anyone else as knowing more, I just am inspired by certain people more, I would say. And that is different from being under control…
Bruce
I still think it’s just as probable to say that starches are just as abundant as fruit if not more so in certain cultures.
Why would the sugar help the dogs if local honey worked and some other honey did not?
And allergies is not the only thing honey is supposedly used for
Yes being active all day may be both more interesting and beneficial, but I still don’t think it’s proven necessary to outlive someone. Third-world countries (but not every native culture..) are most certainly more active then the average american, but that doesn’t prove anything. Any country is probably more active then the average american.
The gurus are people like "The Witch" on Plant Poisons, who acts like her diet is the only healthy diet and everyone ought to eliminate salicylates and amines from their diet, because she has some problem with them. Gurus are people like Charles Washington, who say you have to eat "95% meat" to prevent obesity, dental caries, heart disease, cancer, etc. These people are preachers. Their diet is a religion. Good Calories, Bad Calories is the Bible to Charles. Every week he gives a sermon on a new chapter. He's pathetic, and all the people feeding his ego are pathetic.
Matt is no guru and neither am I. We see that there are many paths to avoid heart disease, cancer, tooth decay, etc. Every diet has trade offs. No diet can promise radiant health to all people. It's all a balancing act, to quote a person from my group. Folks like Bear, Charles, Taubes, Eades, Atkins, JK, Bary Groves, and the other low-carb cult leaders pretend like their diet is the only path to health & yet few of them look healthy.
Eades is overweight. He weighs almost as much as Art DeVany and is about the same height, but Art is muscular, while Eades is soft and pudgy. He claims protein can build muscle and tells his followers to eat worthless protein powders and other garbage, rather than real food. He goes on a rant when one of his readers dares to eat half a banana and an apple. As if such natural foods are worse than eating processed meats, artificial sweeteners, and pure protein powders. He argues that artificial sweeteners are healthier than refined sucrose, when many studies show that they are carcinogenic, fattening, and disease-causing poison.
Richard Bernstein is another guru giving people bad advice, to eat processed food rather than real food. These people have no integrity or no intelligence. They'd rather people eat processed meats than a banana. They'd rather people sit all day than do interval training, kettle-bells, hiking, squatting, active sitting, Cross Fit, and other metabolic exercises. They couldn't be more wrong in what they tell people to eat. and lots of people eating carbs are healthier than these processed food eating low-carb clowns.
Bruce, etc:
The germ theory of disease has a tremendous amount of data backing it up. The “germs are our friends” theory has next to none.
Let me dispense with a strawman argument. The germ theory of disease does not say that other health factors make not difference. The germ theory is simply that exposure is required to come down with the disease in question, and that many germs are harmful in general to our health. Smallpox does not “purge our toxins.” It generates toxins and frequently killed.
Health is a function of multiple variables. Let us simplify by glopping into two variables: exposure to bad germs and a priori robustness (from diet, exercise, etc.) Being in robust apriori health can diminish the effect of a baneful germ, and sometimes result in no sickness whatsoever. This much is conceded. That said, for many diseases the exposure function is FAR more important. Complete lack of exposure (isolation) OR gradual exposure (vaccination or natural analog) is why diseases such as polio, smallpox, etc. are now rare to nonexistent.
Some diseases may well require a weakened constitution to catch hold. Tuberculosis was rampant during a time of great air pollution and has since diminished greatly. (But pasteurizing milk has diminished exposure, so I might be conceding too much.)
I do think diet can affect immunity significantly. What I dispute strongly are the extreme overstatements of the case I have found on this blog and in the comments above. To wit:
* The idea that certain baneful germs exist to help us purge toxins is ludicrous. Yes, a heightened immune response triggered by a germ can result in a detox as a side effect, just a running away from a lion is a good workout. But it ain’t the bacteria or parasites selectively eating toxins.
* The idea that a natural diet can confer immunity to all disease is far from proven. We have an immense amount of data to refute this claim. Whether any diet can do this is speculative at best, but even if it exists, evidence is woefully lacking.
Many of the populations Westin Price studied were very isolated. Such isolation may have reduced the need for medicine men, not special diets.
Question: what was the native Hawaiian diet? Did it differ all that much from the healthy Polynesians Price studied? The Hawaiians were devastated by a few germy missionaries showing up.
You can find many articles about doctors using gut worms to reverse diseases like ulcerative colitis, using salmonella and other bacteria to fight cancer, etc. The potential for healing has been shown. In some of the articles they talk about how anaerobic bacteria thrive under the same conditions as cancer, and produce toxins that can destroy cancer. Maggots cleanse and disinfect wounds. Leeches are useful for many different purposes.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bloodysuckers/leech.html
Bad bacteria can’t survive and reproduce in a healthy body, but they reproduce in areas harboring cancer due to low oxygen levels. So, maybe there is the potential that bacteria, viruses and parasites can help clean up the body, as some believe. You can’t dismiss the idea without a lot more research in this area.
Some people do get sick from exposure to diseases, but most don’t. Blaming it all on germs is a primitive outlook. Most of us have the germs in our bodies already. It’s not true to say that we’re suddenly exposed to bacteria and get sick. We may have been harboring those bacteria in us for months or years. Blaming diseases on microbes is guilt by association.
CSM: “The germ theory is simply that exposure is required to come down with the disease in question, and that many germs are harmful in general to our health.”
We are exposed to germs all the time, so that part of the germ theory is entirely tautological and unfalsifiable. It would be nonsensical to expect someone to have a “disease” and not have been exposed to the disease bacteria. So we’re left with the idea that “many germs are harmful in general.” That has not been proven. Even the most virulent disease doesn’t have a 100% mortality rate. So, there is either natural immunity or immunity as a result of robustness.
“Smallpox does not “purge our toxins.” It generates toxins and frequently killed.”
The right diet can render toxins more or less harmful. Is there total protection? Perhaps not. But you can greatly improve your odds. Building up your immunity by exposing yourself to germs might help as another line of defense. Not washing too much, not avoiding sick people, etc. The Hygiene Hypothesis also has considerable weight and I think it is more deserving of being called a “theory” than the germ theory. Being isolated may put you at a greater risk of disease, being too clean can do the same thing even if you’re not isolated. Change both of those factors, change diet and lifestyle, and maybe you cut your odds significantly.
Bruce, just a quick thing to add to the exercise philosophy..
I think it’s wise to get healthy through food first in order to then be able to do exercise; as exercise (even HIIT – which is making the heart beat fast) can create further problems in certain individuals with all different health problems (just like some diets considered natural would usually be tolerated by a group of healthy people can not be tolerated by an unhealthy bunch). But just to be clear – I don’t think exercising is unhealthy, but I don’t think not being active for the entire day is entirely unhealthy either. HIIT sounds very fun to me, actually, haha, and I used to do things similar to that when I was exercising a lot. Little late reply, but I don’t like putting out the wrong impression. Das all
Most kids used to get a lot of exercise playing outside. Now they’re kept inside watching TV, internet, and playing video games. There is no substitute for being outside and active. You can waste all of your life waiting to “get healthy.” I’d rather take proactive steps and be above average. Diet isn’t everything. I would bet on Jack LaLanne’s longevity above a couch potato eating the best diet in the world. Jack did 1,000 push-ups at 42 and 1,000 chin-ups at 45. How many could do half that much at age 30?
Being more realistic, consider that Mark Sisson only does one sprint workout each week for a few minutes, plus weights and light activity. It doesn’t take much to build or maintain a great physique when you train smart and hard. High-intensity exercise (like play) keeps the body and mind youthful and vigorous. Why would it have to be defended? It’s clear just by observing how children and animals play. When that instinct dies, the body starts to die too. People who do HIIT don’t get heart problems, unless they eat an awful diet. Their heart has as much chance of failure as a hydraulic pump.
I got a question for folks~
(and excuse my poor english)
concerning the cafeteria diet
does it mean the overall ratio of high everything (fat protein carbs) are bad?
what if you do nutrient timing
I mean you eat high everything but the timing differs~ like carb with protein, fat with protein….
What an interesting post!!!
Won: “concerning the cafeteria diet
does it mean the overall ratio of high everything (fat protein carbs) are bad?
what if you do nutrient timing[?]
I mean you eat high everything but the timing differs~ like carb with protein, fat with protein….”
That would probably be OK for some folks if they stay away from refined carbs and processed foods. The Kitavan people eat like 70% carbs, 20% fat, and 10% protein from tubers, coconuts, fish, fruit, and root vegetables. For healthy and active people, they maybe able to eat high-fat, high-carb, high-protein with no trouble.
Obviously, there is a difference between different sources of fat and carbs, etc. PUFA oils and vegetable fats are usually more unstable than animal fats, but the tropical oils are an exception (coconut, palm kernel, macadamia, and red palm in small amounts). The animal fats are not all equal, either. The most stable fats are high in saturated and/or mono-unsat, and low in poly-unsaturated fat. For ex: beef, suet, veal, butter, buffalo, lamb, foie gras, and pork leaf fat. Other fats are moderate in PUFAs (10-13%) – goose, duck, and pork fat. Some animal fats are fairly high in PUFAs, like chicken, and turkey skin. I think it’s best to limit PUFAs of all kinds, even fatty fish, and especialy vegetable oils high in PUFAs – anything but tropical oils and moderate amounts of olive oil (pref wit hno more than 1g of PUFAs per tablespoon).
Actually i’m korean~(again excuse my poor english)
so that mean i used to eat like tone of white rice, root veggies, green veggies, all kinds of meat including sea food…and of course, Bravo Modernized Korea~ fast foods(donuts pizza hamburger pastry….)
Basically what my mom gave me~
But now I’m living alone and had hard time to eat well, this is when i discovered the low carb movement~
I’ve tried the Paleo diet(Cordain)only meat diet, JK’s optimal diet
But the more i try and I felt no better(funny but it’s true, of course i didn’t eat fast food when i was on those diet). I’ve read many nutrition blog but I come to think that many including me didn’t see the forest from the tree. But reading this blog and comments i think it’s very eye opening.
I’m going back to the traditional Korean diet becuz i felt fantastic somtimes and sometime crappy but i didn’t give a fair try~ without the fast food and stuff. it will be basically lot of white rice, moderate amount of meat(bone broth, beef, pork organs,chicken, sea food),veggies(kimchi,roots,green,sea), some butter(to replace veg oil)and little fermented soy stuff(sauce,”doenjang”which is korean miso if you will etc…). i won’t count the exact number, i think it will be quite similar to the japanes diet(not exactly but just for the sake of explaining for guys who don;t know what Korean diet is, maybe with less fish and more red meat, but we also love raw fish)
so thanks for the reply and i’ll just see what happen.
Oh and more and more koreans eat lot of food made of breaded(wheat flour) fried in corn or soy oil or foods simply fried in corn or soy oil~ i also used to eat a lot of it, and i will drop that also~(maybe a tiny bit not to be inpolite in social and family meal)
that’s cool Won; I had a friend who was korean and they always were buying stuff from the asian market; her mom was really really good at cooking – I had Bulgogi once, and it was reeealllly good. They also liked american food though..haha..a lot.
I hope you see results this time
Question for you bruce k,
Do you ban all PUFA’s from plants, nuts, seeds, even in there raw state? Would say taking Udo’s 369 blend of un oxidized highly stable oils be a bad thing, or are even those disasterous to ones health.
I was also wondering how you combine your food and eat. Could you post up on here a day in life of eating for you. I would really like to know how you combine food.
Overall my health has been kicking ass just by making saturated fat my main macro nutrient, wether its from lots of coconut oil or butter and ghee. Also using a 8 hour feeding window daily that i follow from Martin and Leangains and i train the way Art, Mark, and all these other guys that look amazing do…Hard, intense, fast, with long periods of rest and surfing for fun….i am lean from these factors. I Have been studying my ass off on diet and nutrition and am trying to find the way like everyone else…what the most optimum way to eat?
I like what Ori Hofmekler(author of the warrior diet and anti estrogenic diet) has to say about food combining causing the weight problem….and also all the chemicals in the world. Thats why i wanted to know your thoughts on food combining.
troy
Hi Matt,
I recently read every post you made in 2008 and skimmed the ones from 2007. Excellent reading – very entertaining and informative.
I think I am closer to broken on the broken-healthy metabolism continuum. Now I believe that I want to get >50g of carbs a day to stay out of ketosis for benefit of my thyroid.
I've avoided sucrose and lactose for a while. You've convinced me that fructose can be a scary thing.
I've also been convinced that starch can be problematic due to potential incomplete digestion. I've read of success with SCD for IBS, AS etc. and then there is the lectin/autoimmune disease connection.
I'm getting convinced that fiber is a bad thing too.
How is the best way to get >50g carbs when I'm now afraid of fiber, starch and sugar?
Lisa
Good commentary everybody. Sorry I’ve been MIA for awhile. It’s been a nice break though.
CSM, there is definitely middle ground on the germ theory. Of course the spread of germs from close quarters, infested stuff, and first exposure to a disease (native americans) plays a huge role in incurring infectious disease. The native Americans weren’t born being dosed with small amounts of many of the European diseases. Only the healthiest of all diets and the healthiest of constitutions were protected. Any error at all resulted in a quick death.
McCarrison’s most telling experiment was when he introduced a bacteria to two different groups of animals in close, ass to ass quarters. In one group, every single animal died. In another group, 24 out of 25 survived. The difference? The diet and nothing else. One deficient, one complete. McCarrison then went on to make the claim that a healthy diet could provide better protection than immunization and even hygeine.
When the body is in a healthy state, the chances of noticing ill symtpoms from a pathogen are very low. The more exposure a person has to pathogens while in a healthy state, the stronger and more diversified the immune system becomes. That’s not hypothesis or theory, that’s just how it works. Wild animals can eat rotten meat, drink creek water, eat shit, lick each other’s asses, whatever. Sure, some die of disease – the least healthy. Some die from being attacked by predators – also the least healthy. The most healthy live on.
The best way to get healthy is to eat and live well.
The best way to build up your immune system to avoid what happened to Native Americans is get exposed to germs when you’re in you’re at your healthiest.
I don’t know how therapeutic pathogens are to us, and how symbiotic that relationship really is. All I know is that I can drink creek water all day long, eat food off my nieces’ plates when they’ve got the flu, and I do not get sick. I have tons of germ exposure, and sick in no way to minimize it. I never wash my hands with soap when handling raw meats, eat everything rare, pound raw dairy products that have been sitting out on the counter for days, and more.
If we evolved to need sunlight, to need exercise, to need food, companionship – that’s all due to adaptation to the circumstances in which we lived for generations. The same holds true for pathogens. We need exposure. Our bodies evolved to require it. Some will die, sure, due to poor constitution, poor diet, stress, etc.
But when we become obsessed with killing bacteria, sterilizing everything, avoiding contact with others, radiating and pasteurizing our food, etc. – everybody loses. When a pathogen finally does come along that spreads too easily to avoid, we will be screwed. Well, unhealthy people will be. The healthiest will be just fine.
The whole point is not to get “out there” like Vonderplanitz and run up to Organic Pastures to get bucketloads of shit to eat, washed down with rotten meat.
But using hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap and pasteurizing all of our dairy products and downing antibiotics represents the other, retarded extreme – that has somehow become mainstream. The other side needs more defense for the majority to become more level-headed about it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with fiber, but removing it from the diet completely can be therapeutic for some people with inflammatory digestive disorders.
Still, a diet with 50 grams of carbohydrates is an extremely low fiber diet. Worrying about fiber on a diet that low in carbs is like worrying about getting too much fat on a fruit diet.
Play around with it, perhaps using peeled potatoes as a carb source, but don’t be stubborn about it. Eat extra fat to help with constipation. If you do get constipated with large, dry stools – you better make some adjustments.
Half Navajo: “Do you ban all PUFA’s from plants, nuts, seeds, even in there raw state? Would say taking Udo’s 369 blend of un oxidized highly stable oils be a bad thing, or are even those disasterous to ones health.”
I would limit nuts and esp seeds, due to PUFAs. If you eat them, I think it would be best to get raw nuts in the shell and shell them by hand. Avoid shelled or oil roasted nuts, in particular. Peanuts and cashews aren’t nuts and I don’t eat them at all, for various reasons – aflatoxin, lectins, PUFAs, fiber. Macadamia oil has less PUFAs than any liquid oil (like 2%) and has a delicate flavor so that is one of my favored oils, along with saturated fats like coconut. Tropical are far more stable than PUFAs oils like Udo’s blend.
Animal fats are usually safer than plant fats if the PUFAs are similar. Foie gras is similar to macadamia oil in its fatty acid ratios, but it’s twice as saturated and more nutritious. I wouldn’t trust an oil like Udo’s blend and think PUFAs are bad even if they’re unoxidized. Flax oil is immune suppressive, IME, and that’s a minimally processed oil.
I eat avocados and olive oils sometimes, but not very often. I look for olive oil with 1g PUFAs per tbsp instead of 1.5-2g like many have. I try to stay well at or below 1g of PUFAs per tbsp or 7% for the oils I use regularly. I mainly eat foods with 2-3% PUFAs by calories – like beef, butter, cheese, milk, fruits, really raw honey, or occasional tubers.
Eating different foods separately, or in a certain order might be useful for some people. It’s obvious from self-selection diet studies that the rat chow diet many experiments use is inherently fattening, and unhealthy. Rats given pre-formulated chow diets (fat, protein, and carbs) are fatter than rats that get to pick their own macronutrient separately – a cup of fat, a cup of protein, a cup of starch, and a cup of sugar. Animals eating “rat chow” gain weight when sugar is added to their diet, but animals given selection don’t gain weight from sugar.
Dietary obesity: Differential effects with self-selection and composite diet feeding techniques
I think these studies have relevance to human obesity, because most people live “like lab rats” to quote Art DeVany. It is generally fattening to eat fast food, restaurant food, junk food, or packaged food with several ingredients (esp PUFA oils, refined sugars, and white flour). Whereas it would be much harder to gain weight by eating each food separately – even using the same refined foods. Many studies demonstrate that food combining changes the results of diet – even when food and macronutrients are the same.
Dietary self-selection vs. complete diet: body weight gain and meal pattern in rats
“There is nothing inherently wrong with fiber, but removing it from the diet completely can be therapeutic for some people with inflammatory digestive disorders.”
I think there are inherent problems with fiber. We can’t digest it, because we’re not cows or birds or horses. It also has anti-nutritive properties like absorbing vitamins, minerals, cholesterol, and it alkalinize the gut, weakening digestion of meat. Given the choice between eating fiber or not eating it, I think healthy tribes would have avoided it. Those who ate it were healthy in spite of it, not because of it. Given the same macro- and micro-nutrients, I think a “low-residue” diet would blow away a high-residue one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_residue_diet
Agreed on fiber. When it’s possible to avoid fiber, humans avoid it. That’s how we got into this mess, by trying to eat foods that normally contain fiber without the fiber.
I definitely don’t think fiber, in and of itself, plays any role in health though, despite the fact that refined grains and sugars lacking it are unhealthy.
But a diet with 50g carbs has, at most, 5 grams of fiber. No big whoop. That’s enough of a fiber reduction to get many of the benefits of a low fiber diet.
Still, I must admit, nothing enhances digestion or skin quality like zero fiber.
And you will approve of how I spent my birthday money…
I have a 2.08 pound lobe of grade A foie gras in my fridge right now. I’ve been wanting to order that for years and haven’t until now.
Thanks mom.
foie gras is basically higher in fat then butter
90% I think is what Gordon Ramsey said when I was watching “The F word” hahaa
I have never tried it.
Don’t! Your bank account will suffer just as much as your mouth and body celebrate! $60 a pound!!!
90% of those who don’t eat Cheetos every day agree that nothing is finer than foie gras. I actually happen to be in the majority in that scenario, if you can believe such a thing.
god damn; the only other food item i can think of that is more expensive are truffles. though i’m sure there are many other expensive ass food items out there, and i wouldnt be surprised if they were all french
I just wish all the best steaks weren’t almost 20 a pound; though I did find an angus beef farmer who sells ribeyes for 13 a pound, and they look nicely marbled for grass fed. I’m thawin them bitches up right now. Just sucks that they’re frozen, but I can’t tell the difference in taste quite yet (not like the butter and eggs…haha)
According to this, foie gras is 86% fat, 11% protein, and 3% carbs. Butter is 99% fat. The fat in foie gras is 1.8% PUFAs, or about 0.8% by weight. It’s much lower in PUFAs than chicken livers or poultry, and it’s healthier IMO. Foie gras is 1/2 as fatty as butter by weight.
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/poultry-products/917/2
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/133/2
Matt: “But a diet with 50g carbs has, at most, 5 grams of fiber. No big whoop. That’s enough of a fiber reduction to get many of the benefits of a low fiber diet.”
Not everyone wants or needs to eat just 50g of carbs. Plus, if you ate a lot of nuts, seeds, avocados, whole grains, or beans, you could get above 5g of fiber, even on that amount.
“Still, I must admit, nothing enhances digestion or skin quality like zero fiber.”
Right. That’s another reason you cannot be too cautious with fiber, IMO. Fruits should be peeled and the seeds removed, IMO. Cooking fruit might also be a good idea, to neutralize toxins. A few types of fruit would be low in toxins if they were picked ripe, but most aren’t. Ray Peat has argued that most fruits should be cooked unless they were picked ripe. Walter Voegtlin also said fruits should be cookd. He even said to cook veggies, and told people not to eat a raw salad. They should cook the fruit and then put it in the refrigerator to cool it down, if they want to eat salad.
Another vice of many low-carbers is dark chocolate, like 85-99% cocoa mass. Peter on HyperLipid eats this poison as one of his staples. 85%+ chocolate has around 5 times more fiber than peeled potatoes by weight. Peter claims to be following Jan Kwasniewski, but I'm sure JK would agree that chocolate is poison. Dark chocolate is not a healthy food, IMO. My health is better since I eliminated it. It's safer to eat chocolate Haagen-Dazs than eating 85% chocolate bars. Even white chocolate would be better, IMO, because it doesn't contain any fiber (just cocoa butter and sugar). Many people are addicted to dark chocolate, and I think they're degrading their health with excess fiber and nasty stimulants. Chocolate increases hunger & reduces energy, but this effect will not be noticed unless you eliminate it for a while and then add it back. I quit using all foods with stimulants, and feel much healthier because of it.
Matt: I’m glad you get it. (I don’t dispute that eating healthy increases immunity, etc. That it provides 100% protection is what is unproven. Creek water in the U.S. is unlikely to have cholera; it is likely to have giardia, but it is uncontroversial that many have giardia with no symptoms.)
Regarding fiber: I don’t think it is the bane ya’ll think it is. Years back, I cured my IBS by going on a mostly raw fruit and vegetable diet — a rather high fiber diet. I ate some meat (cooked) but eliminated all cooked starches. My digestion went from terrible to perfect in a week. But I lost too much weight on the diet, and the social cost of avoiding cooked starches was immense. Also, the high sugar content got to be a problem over time.
Maybe you would have stayed healthy on a mostly fruit and vegetable diet if you'd cooked some of the food, or juiced it. I agree with Matt that we can thrive on a wide range of macronutrient intakes. I'm able to eat more carbs and less fat with great results, when in the past I would have some negative symptoms. The biggest issue is how fast your metabolism works, not your macronutrient ratios. Most have slow metabolisms, which is why they tend to gravitate to high-fat low-carb diets. I'd rather address teh slow metabolism & not have to eat a limited diet. Starches cause me shortness of breath and a dull, sedated feeling – as do high PUFA foods, like nuts and seeds.
Fruits and vegetables make a better diet than grains, beans, nuts, and seeds IMO. But why can't you deal with the costs of giving up starches if your digestion and health were better without them? I don't eat much starch, because I think they're bad for your metabolism. (They slow down thyroid function while sugars raise it.) People with slow metabolism can't handle sugars. People with a slower metabolism can't handle starches. And so on.
I think we can solve these problems – by confronting them head-on. Eat foods that stimulate metabolism and provide maximum energy to the cells. The body will adapt and grow stronger, whereas eating a diet for a damaged metabolism will just leave you with a damaged metabolism.
Hi~
it’s been not very long that i have gone back the korean diet~
Lots of white rice with moderate to low animal products…
But I feel fine~ and actually better than on low carb~
Maybe i was doing something wrong on the low carbs i don’t really know why~
maybe just becuz i change up things i dont know~
Anyway, maybe i’ll try one day
eating only sugar to see what happen~
Lot’s of interesting stuff going on here~
Do youm, guys, any idea why i might feel better going back to korean diet?
Becuz I actually taught i know a lot reading low carb blogs and books but now seeing this blog and so on make me quite confused ..
Hey Won; what’s an example of something you ate during your low-carb diet versus an example of your korean diet? There’s lots of ways people approach the low-carb diet.
The very first low carb i tried was the paleo diet~
lean meat, veggies with olive oil, nuts, fruits… no grains
the second was Jk optimal diet introduced by reading Peter’s blog~
Meat with lot of butter and potatoes as the only carb source~
the Last and most recent try was all meat diet~ almost every meal was beef or chicken breast with lot of butter~ no carb~
And today for example i’ve eaten
white rice, eggs with butter, soy sauce beef with some onions and
Sushi with some veggies …
oh, I don’t eat organs a lot.. maybe that’s the problem~ although i love raw beef liver, pork lungs liver… but right now i feel good~
I also live quite a stressful life. Working the day and studying until late at night. Life in Seoul is quite stressful. you have to be there to understand~
But even though my energy was never super high i can say one thing for sure~ I felt much better than my previous crappy diet~
I wasn’t implying that low carb doesn’t work…i did feel quite good on it~ but i’m still young and want to try out thing. Reading Stephan and Matt’s blog and all the comments was really eye opening. I have high hope for the future~ Thanks guys~
Oh and one thing low carb helped me is apetite control~ Even going back to high carb i don’t have problem with craving foods like i used to back then~ I was hungry hungry all the time~ going low carb kind of healed me from that point of view~
Won,
The body loves carbs when starved of them for a while. The body is all about equilibrium. Eat no carbs for a long time, and then when you eat carbs it’s electrifying. Eat a high sugar diet, and when you go low carb it is amazing mentally. Reduction of cravings is probably the best aspect of low carb diets. Great for overcoming addictions. I too have become far less manic over time about sugary foods that I used to be hooked on.
Bruce,
I think the harm of stimulants is one of the most underestimated ills in the modern diet. I consume no stimulants in any shape, form, or fashion. Life without stimulants is incomparable to life with stimulants. I have more energy, more stable moods, controlled appetite, am better hydrated, need less sleep, etc.
Dark chocolate can kill animals. Why anyone thinks it’s healthy is absurd. The sugar/fat/caffeine/theobromine combo. is quite a slap upside the head. Just knowing that the U.S. consumes 25% of the global caffeine supply is reason enough in and of itself to avoid caffeine, particularly chocolate, which is just as gnarly as gas station coffee – and more addictive.
CSM,
I too experienced massive digestive healing eating a diet that was mostly fruits and vegetables and doing a lot of ‘cleanses.’ When I go on such a regimen now, it’s quite healing.
However, when eating a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet, when I eat significant amounts of fiber it causes some serious plumbing problems – smelly, hard stools the size of Texas.
When my diet is more like Graham’s 80-10-10, I have stools that are very soft, smooth, narrow in diameter, and easy to pass.
Perhaps the more meat and fat you eat, the more disruptive fiber becomes. That’s why I don’t think fiber, in and of itself, is harmful – but something that, in certain circumstances, can be avoided with great results.
Matt,
I think cocoa butter is the best part of chocolate. That is probably pretty safe, as the stimulants and fiber are removed. But dark chocolate is a really bad idea, because of the fiber and stimulants. You may be right that mixing fiber with lots of meat or fat is a bad idea. Eating too much meat or fat with fiber will give me large stools too. It probably slows down digestion too much. Better to remove the fiber or rotate your foods. Even using a low-fiber food like potatoes, fiber will expand to like 4-5 times its size, based on Monastyrsky’s references.
The reduction of cravings on low-carb is from reduction of fiber, IMO. If you eat lots of fiber, you will have cravings on low-carb. A high-carb diet with no fiber or stimulants eliminates my hunger, even with moderate amounts of sugar (like 50g a day). I think that much of what people see as hunger is actually gut irritation from fiber or withdrawal from stimulants like coffee, tea, chocolate, etc.
I don’t believe that carbs cause hunger, per se. Grains do, esp refined ones, but they still contain fiber. Strained juice and honey has a different effect. I have improved my body’s metabolism to where I can eat orange juice and apple juice and raw honey and still be calm, stable, and balanced for several hours. I don’t ever spike or crash. When I do get hungry, it is not overpowering, just a reduction of energy. Eating fats with the carbs (like brie) gives me longer energy.
In my opinion, you are mistaken.