It’s been a year now of concentrated research and tireless pondering on the current human health status, what constitutes an optimally healthy diet and lifestyle, and the best strategy for where to go from here if health interests you. To be able to come to some worthy conclusions, I had to make as much sense out of the endless sea of information as possible. This was no small feat, and the process of putting the pieces of the ?puzzle? together is an ever-evolving process of refinement. But as we hit the end of 2007 and celebrate a full year of my self-righteous proclamations, it made sense to commemorate the current status of my overall understanding of the health trends that we’re seeing in the world.
First of all, for all who are unfamiliar with this site and the information offered here, human health is much worse right now than most people realize. Human health is by far the worst that it has ever been in history. At no time in history have humans been so weakly constituted, so prone to chronic and infectious disease, so overweight, so ridden with diabetes, digestive disorders, mental disabilities, and so on. Our teeth and eyesight are more commonly abnormal than any comparable species on earth. Modern medical advancements keep us alive, but our level of sickness is enormous. Those in disagreement are simply uneducated on the level of health experienced by our ancestors and of other creatures on earth living their intended lifestyles and enjoying a harmonious, appropriate diet.
Now let’s focus on why.
What has caused all of this? The primary answer is clear and irrefutable as far as I can see, and this is where the work of Weston A. Price shines brightly ? over-reliance on refined modern carbohydrate foods. Price was able to show, through his world travels and research, that the demise of flawless humans was brought about by the introduction of these foods. Time and time again, native peoples who enjoyed countless generations of excellent health, and who had passed down physical and mental perfection for centuries, became increasingly prone to ailments that were unknown prior to modern foods but are pandemic today. This includes tooth decay, crooked teeth, poor eyesight, allergies, skeletal malformations, arthritis, diabetes, asthma, Cancer, tuberculosis, and so many other illnesses that scarcely existed prior to the modern age.
Of course, there are dozens of factors that exacerbate poor health: mental stress, too little physical movement, depletion of soils, chemical food additives, and industrial and agricultural pesticides ? just to name a few. The beginnings of ill health, and the most powerful influence over our bodies, however, is modern, refined, technologically adulterated, processed, and packaged foods ? especially refined grain and sugar. Modern medicine and research should consider the question, ?what causes disease?? a closed case and move on to a more specific inquiry: how and why are refined sugar, grain, and other processed foods the root cause of most illnesses?
I’ve spent the last 12 months pondering this specific question more than any other, scrutinizing as much information as I could get my hands on, and the following is my most up-to-date conclusion:
Weston A. Price noticed that in all the disease-causing diets of the modern people were almost identical and consisted of lots of white sugar, white flour, canned fruits and vegetables, and canned condensed milk. Very little meat was eaten or other protein and fat-rich complimentary foods. He concluded that vitamin and mineral deficiency was the cause of people’s problems, because these foods didn’t even come close to comparing to native diets in terms of micronutrients. This was the focus of his research.
Getting adequate water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins, as well as minerals is very important, but I don’t believe that a deficiency there, as Price theorized, was the root cause of the gross degeneration seen. I also don’t believe that people’s health declined primarily because the food had been cooked, pasteurized, and sterilized as others might believe. Many native clans ate almost exclusively cooked food and had no signs of physical/mental deformity and degeneration. What I do believe, is that too many carbohydrate foods, especially non-nutritious, rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates like refined grain and sugar without complimentary fats and proteins from other sources, throws the body out of homeostasis, makes one susceptible to infectious illness, disturbs digestion, and starts a chain of deterioration.
The degenerative process as noted by Price was explained a little differently by another observer during the same time period in India, Sir Robert McCarrison, C.I.E., M.A., M.D., D. Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P. (I don’t usually drop initials to impress people, but come on, this guy’s got 17 of ?em!). He states:
?A diet deficient in vitamins (particularly fat-soluble vitamins from animal products), and disproportionally rich in starch leads to depression of digestive and gastrointestinal function.
And:
?Gastrointestinal disturbance and other forms of vague ill health can be prevented by supplying the necessary vitamins and adjusting the balance of the food.?
McCarrison observed, time and time again with different groups of people all over the country of India, each eating a somewhat different diet, that digestion was impaired in those eating too much starch (mostly white rice) and too little animal products. The digestive dysfunction came first, but what followed was asthma, allergies, joint problems, more feeble physique, and the long litany of disturbances noted by Price and others.
The removal of vitamins, minerals, and other components during the processing of refined carbohydrates is hugely significant. However, a diet too heavily laden with carbohydrates is disruptive on its own, refined or not refined. The refining process simply drives a nail into the coffin, speeding up the process of degeneration.
What Price and McCarrison were most likely seeing was a hormone disturbance brought about by a diet that was chronically high in rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates without sufficient vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats to counterbalance them. In turn, bodies were no longer able to maintain the most elemental foundation of good health ? homeostasis. Homeostasis of course is a fancy word for balance.
From my research, it seems like the top three primary indicators of homeostasis are the pH balance of the blood (7.4 ideal), the fasting glucose level of the blood (85 ideal), and the calcium to phosphorous ratio (5:2 ideal). When the body is operating at these levels it is functioning smoothly and efficiently, and is resistant to both chronic and infectious disease (strategies for getting to homeostasis; however, are often way off base).
Whole, harmonious, nutrient-dense foods have a limited ability to disrupt this system beyond its boundaries in a well-constituted person. Even refined foods take decades to noticeably disrupt a perfectly-constituted human being. However, an imbalance of any kind is cumulative and spans generations. Based on Price’s studies alone, where he showed clearly the level of physical perfection experienced by ?primitive? humans in the 1930’s, it is undeniable that the health passed down to modern 21st century humans is inferior. In other words, the younger the generation, the less likely a person is to get away with eating improperly.
The next question is whether the root cause of our cumulative inherited imbalances is an endocrine disorder at the core or a gastrointestinal disorder at the core. As McCarrison discovered, digestion was the first thing to go, followed by an endless litany of health disorders. True, once the digestion is impaired, the body cannot operate smoothly and efficiently and can develop virtually any known problem. Is it possible though that the departure from homeostasis, which is controlled primarily by hormonal systems (endocrine, paracrine, and autocrine), causes physiological changes that impair proper digestive function? It is hard to say for sure, it’s a what comes first the chicken or the egg kind of question. My guess is that a breakdown of either, for any reason, is the primary catalyst to the development of illness.
Another concept has been postulated by folks like Gary Taubes. Taubes suggests that many generations of overconsuming carbohydrate foods, which he fully acknowledges is transmissible from mother to child in the intrauterine environment, has created a human inability to properly metabolize carbohydrate foods. He suggests eating a diet more like what phenomenally-healthy Eskimos ate, who had virtually no illness. This diet is extremely high in fat and protein and has virtually no carbohydrates at all, considered extreme and unhealthy by just about everyone. Although Taubes has scrutinized diet intelligently and exhaustively, to me this doesn’t seem like the answer, and nearly everyone I’ve encountered eating few carbohydrates for an extended period of time had it backfire on them after tremendous initial success.
I also think adopting certain principles of a diet while ignoring the others is foolish. If you want to eat an Eskimo diet you need to be eating mostly raw meat and tremendous amounts of what they considered to be their most prized health food ? large quantities of rotting fish and meat. Taubes also bases much of his research on Stefansson, an arctic explorer who ate exactly like the Eskimo for 10 years. Stefansson was then studied in a laboratory for 1 year in New York to monitor his health on a meat-only diet. His health, under surveillance, was great, and he, and another of Stefansson’s men, lost a few pounds over the course of the study.
But this weight loss is meaningless, and one year of studying two men who had previously spent many years carbohydrate-free, making that metabolic adjustment on the exact fare of the Eskimos, couldn’t possibly be conclusive. In fact, a little weight loss is typical for low-carbers, because they must burn structural proteins to produce glucose. Thus, they lose muscle mass while maintaining or even gaining body fat ? causing weight to steadily drop without an increase in leanness. In contrast, after eating a balanced diet, my body weight actually registers as significantly overweight for my height and body type. The official numbers suggest that a medium-framed, 5?9? male should ideally weigh 146-158. Ha! I weigh 177 despite probably having less than 10% body fat (no I don’t check this daily!) and not having huge guns. That’s 19-31 pounds overweight! Would burning more muscle mass for glucose and reducing my weight to 158 with the same amount of body fat really make me healthier? Come on Gary!
Sorry to get sidetracked, but with all the carbohydrate bashing I thought it was extremely important to mention my belief that carbohydrate avoidance is not the answer. Just because carbohydrates are linked to virtually any disease (something that Taubes and I agree upon), doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t eat them.
The answer is rather humbling for me. Before I started this website, I thought the focus on macronutrients was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. Dr. Barry Sears, author of the The Zone believes that it doesn’t matter what you eat or where it comes from, what matters is the macronutrient balance. He recommends eating his soy protein isolate, additive-laden techno fecal Zone candy bars. For a guy like me with a passion for quality unadulterated foods, grown in harmony with nature, and prepared according to timeless traditions Sears was enemy #1 ? the biggest buffoon out there. So enjoy this moment Doc, because I am bending over, taking one for the team here:
Macronutrient balance (protein, carbs, and fat) is not everything when it comes to good health, but it is extremely important, perhaps more important than any other factor for the maintenance and cultivation of strong health and vitality.
To this humbling statement I’d like to add that there’s no reason why you can’t eat nutrient-dense, delicious whole foods cultivated harmoniously by local farmers for even better health. There is also no reason not to eat vast quantities of raw, unadulterated foods while simultaneously paying attention to macronutrient balance. Thus, the optimal diet is rich in raw food, real food, and the almighty overseer ? balance.
To quote Dr. McDopey:
?Supplementing your diet with micronutrients [vitamins, minerals, enzymes, etc. found in, for example, wholesome and raw foods] without simultaneously controlling the macronutrient balance is like building a sand castle on the beach to protect yourself from an oncoming hormonal tidal wave.
What is the proper macronutrient balance? The main thing is getting protein and carbohydrates approximately equal. Actually, the ideal is probably closer to .75 protein to carbs ? say 30 grams protein and 40 grams carbs at each meal to which fats can be added liberally. Fats must be present to properly utilize carbs and protein and keep the body functioning optimally; however, the higher your meal is in calories, the more insulin your body will secrete, and too much insulin is undesirable to say the least. My meals hover around 30:40:50 (grams of carbs to protein to fat) for a total of about 750 calories.
Of course this is a health website and not strictly a dietary website, and factors such as skipping meals, staying up several hours past your normal bedtime, overexercising, insufficient sleep, drug use, chronic mental stress, and emotional trauma also cause ?an oncoming hormonal tidal wave.
So, back to the chicken and egg question. The catch here is that many people have disturbed digestion and simply cannot jump right into a mixed, nourishing, ideal diet without repercussion. Leaky Gut Syndrome, a nutrient-absorption problem where molecules aren’t properly converted and thus enter the bloodstream via the intestines in a form that’s toxic to the body is pandemic. It’s as if everyone is suffering from this disorder to various degrees nowadays. These toxic molecules cause an inflammatory or allergic reaction, depleting Immunoglobulin supplies and leading to other immune disorders such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and eczema. It causes irritation within the intestines and can lead to inflammatory bowel disorders like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. These undigested particles cause specific food allergies, which are becoming very common and in some cases quite pronounced. This undigested matter and the resulting digestive abnormalities is even unmistakably linked to psychological illness from ADD and ADHD to Autism and Schizophrenia. A real Catch 22 indeed.
So what needs to be done? Well, the digestive tract needs rest, and much of the health claims of vegetarianism, cleansing, fasting, and food-combining are a result of this healing rest. Brief stints of eating only raw fruits and vegetables for example can be very restful for the digestive tract. Juice fasting can be very therapeutic. Maintaining a vegan diet for a period of a month or so can have its rewards. However, the instant short-term gratification of this eating style is sometimes (as in always) misinterpreted as meaning that this is a healthier long-term way of eating. Negative Ghost Rider. You can undergo healing and purification from such a diet, but if continued too long can bring about your demise. Just ask Pippa. There really is no debate between true vegetarianism and a mixed diet. A vegetarian on fish, eggs, and raw dairy products; however, can attain magnificent health.
I also feel that impaired digestion heightens the need for raw animal products with unaltered fats and proteins. Raw dairy products, raw eggs, and raw meats and fish are very nourishing and can help restore digestion, even among those who have shown allergy to pasteurized dairy and cooked meat. Eating raw foods for an extended period of time can be profoundly healing and strengthening.
Avoiding foods that cause allergic reaction is not a solution though as some have been led to believe on gluten and casein-free diets. The problem is improper digestion of those foods, not the foods themselves. Avoiding them is important to let the digestive tract rest and heal, but the idea is to work towards balancing the body to be able to eat a wide variety of healthy foods without developing allergic reaction. Just like someone who is allergic to cats, avoiding cats doesn’t cure the allergy, it just doesn’t activate the allergy. When you can use cat fur as a pillow you’ve healed.
Okay, I’m exhausted, and for the brave who have scrolled all the way down to read this one, you are too. I don’t want to shoot my whole wad here because there’s plenty more where that came from. It’s been one year of Sacred Self, and for those of you who have followed along, I thank you. We’ve had a chance to learn and grow together. But this is just the beginning of a long and interesting journey. Please stick with me in 2008 as we continue to develop a deeper understanding of how to get in perfect sync with our bodies, and please spread the word of this site to others. Your help there supports me in the dedication of so much of my time and effort to bringing forth the most accurate, current, and revolutionary information on human vitality.
-Matt Stone
Sacred Self
Revolutionary Common Sense
Upcoming schedule:
Before the end of the year I’ll publish my personal reading list, a functioning bibliography of 2007’s contributions if you will, and a compilation of quotes from dozens of authors.
In January I may take a quick break, but will resume before the end of the month with a thoroughly mind-blowing synopsis of Pleomorphism, the overlooked scientific discovery that every human cell has within it the property to spontaneously change form into ?pathogenic? organisms such as fungi, parasites, viruses, and bacteria ? thus adding a whole new dimension and creating a new paradigm to the current germ theory of the modern scientific and medical world. Yeah, that should be a good one?
“The removal of vitamins, minerals, and other components during the processing of refined carbohydrates is hugely significant. However, a diet too heavily laden with carbohydrates is disruptive on its own, refined or not refined.”
The Kitavans may be an exception. They eat ~70% carbs, 20% fat, 10% protein. The carbs are from tubers mostly, then fruit. They also eat coconuts and fish. Western Foods – like sugar, alcohol, flour, dairy, and vegetable oils – are only 0.2% of their diet. Most of them smoke, but they are quite healthy. I am totally in agreement with the rest of what you said. I think people need to consider the macronutrient ratios as the foundation of sound diet and different people probably need different ratios. Some might thrive on a zero-carb diet. Others might thrive on a Kitava diet and others are somewhere in between.
http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/TheKitavaStudy.html
Since I wrote this post nearly a year ago, I would agree wholeheartedly. Historic diets don’t have any kind of macronutrient balance rule. Like McCarrison noted, as long as some dietary staples were present such as dairy products, meats, etc. to complement the high starch load then that was sufficient.
The Kitavans can eat a high carbohydrate diet with great health. The question now is, can someone with hyperinsulinemia who has disturbed digestion get the same results on a similar diet?
To an extent, yes, as long as all refined sugars are absent from the diet. I know of few who could go on a zero-sugar diet without noticeable health improvements. As has later been established on my site, it is the high load of fructose which causes the dramatic changes in LPL activity, insulin levels, and other signs of metabolic syndrome. Like John Yudkin so seemlessly pointed out, there is a huge difference between how simple sugars such as fructose behave in the human body compared to starches. It is a grave error on the part of most low-carb enthusiasts to suggest that a carb is a carb when they are so clearly distinct.
But from a recovery perspective, I do feel that high insulin levels, a suppressed immune system, malabsorption, and poor digestion are present to a degree in virtually all modern humans — just as cavities and crooked teeth are – both ominous signs of degeneration. In this physiological state, although theoretically a high-carb low-fat diet like the Kitavans should be equal to a reduced-carbohydrate diet, it is not. For recovery from these common disorders, there is really a more sensible and reasonable approach to counterbalancing these disorders. Fiber is scarcely more than an irritant to someone with poor digestion. Carbohydrates of all forms keep hunger, insulin, and fat storage elevated in those with hyperinsulinemia.
The Kitavan diet is better for most of us than what we currently eat. That is absolute fact. It would help us improve our health, collectively, if we jumped on it. But, the bottom line is that such a diet isn’t the best dietary strategy we can employ.
The Kitava diet is different than most high-carb diets, because it’s based on tubers instead of grains or sugars. It also is high in saturated fat from the coconuts and very low in omega-6 fats, because the only fats are the fish and coconuts. Also, it’s a paleolithic diet based on a true definition of the term. Cordain’s idea of the paleolithic diet with unlimited fruit is an abomination. But he seems to have seen the light, as he’s pointing out cultures like Kitava, that are infinitely healthier than the modern Western societies.
Potatoes are infinitely healthier than grains, IMO, esp the modern varieties, which are mostly highly processed, full of additives, rancid, and adulterated. Potatoes are low in fiber, low in PUFA oils, and higher in nutrients than the grains. They’re a slam dunk.
Also, there are some other populations that eat a similar diet to Kitava, but higher in fat (from coconuts). Tokelau and PukaPuka are the tribes. There are some studies about them, too. They all seem to be immune to those diseases of civilization like acne, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.
Grains, historically, were very health-giving. Look no further than the work of McCarrison or Weston A. Price to see that whether the staple is wheat or oats or potatoes – perfect health like that of the Kitavans can be achieved.
Of course, with our massive decline in health since that era, it does appear that grains are much more difficult to digest and have problematic proteins. I do find root vegetables to be superior as a starch, but once again, I can’t say that any staple of human diets for millenia is or is not healthy. Most people get tripped up on that. It’s not what’s in the Kitavan diet, but what’s not in the Kitavan diet.
It’s primarily the refined sugars, but also pasteurized milk, and to a lesser degree PUFA’s that impairs us to where we can no longer choose from that long list of healthy foods as if it was a buffet and achieve such fantastic levels of health. At least, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to thru this search ‘o mine.
Such foods yield a “disturbance in carbohydrate metabolism” would be one way to put it.
Weston Price seemed to think that whole grains (esp flours) had to be fresh. He ground fresh flour every day to reverse cavities in the children. I feel he put more emphasis on this than the methods Sally Fallon promotes, like soaking and sprouting grains. If the flour’s rancid already, what good does that do? Those rancid fats destroy vitamins in grains. They’re definitely problematic and part and parcel with the other problems that exist with grains. Roots and tubers are the safer, more paleo bet.
“The Kitavan diet is better for most of us than what we currently eat. That is absolute fact. It would help us improve our health, collectively, if we jumped on it. But, the bottom line is that such a diet isn’t the best dietary strategy we can employ.”
Not everybody can afford a diet high in meat, raw butter, and so forth, Even if they had the money, they might not want to go to such an extreme. Any way there is no need to eat exactly like Kitavans do. Local foods could be used to create similar nutrient levels. Or coconut oil could be used instead of whole coconut. Just eliminating most grains and sugars and vegetable oils would be a gigantic, massive change for the better. What is not in the Kitavan diet is all kinds of problematic fats, proteins, and carbs.
Absolutely.
However, I’ve come to feel like the butter, whether it is raw or cooked, makes little difference (it’s cooked lactose that makes dairy the most indigestible, especially when quaffed ice cold). Also, if eating plenty of fats, the need for a lot of meat decreases. My meat portions are typically very dainty, and I get by on 10 bucks a day no problem. It’s really lean protein and vegetables that are the most expensive (excluding things like potatoes), if you look at the calories per dollar cost. And the bottom line is, we eat to hit a caloric quota, so any calculations on cost have really got to be based around that calculation method.
From that perspective, butter, although considered an expensive commodity, is one of the cheapest things I eat. Olive oil, coconut oil, and others are even cheaper.
Also I like your commentary on grain freshness. Fermentation and sprouting is not universal. The Sikhs and Hunzas that McCarrison was so impressed with ground fresh whole wheat berries into a flour and then instantly made chapattis, cooking them for only a few minutes. That was their staple, and their health was legendary.
Good luck with your battle with Charles at AV skeptics!
Thanks! Charles left after 3 or 4 rants, luckily. Do you eat like Jan Kwasniewski suggests nowadays (high-fat,low-protein, very low-carb)? A while ago you said you eat like 60% fat and 20% carbs, but more recently I think you said 80% fat. I aim for $5/day. I can’t find raw butter, and raw milk would be tricky. Raw cheese can be found and non-homogenized milk. I eat 8-32 ounces of raw cheese/wk. Butter is indeed a cheap food. Even organic butter is cheap on a calorie basis. 800 kcal/$.
I mentioned your blog on AV-skeptics and Pip Galea said that you were a friend. I am glad I found your blog. Cheers!
What kind of coconut oil do you use? Do you think it makes a difference if it is refined or virgin? Ray Peat believes in coconut oil strongly, but he thinks it’s best for most people to get the cheap 76 degree naturally refined coconut oil. It costs under $2 a pound in bulk from soap making companies. Food grade. The virgin coconut oils can cost a lot more, esp if you buy them at a health food store. And I’ve noticed they cause hypoglycemia and other symptoms, which Ray warns against.
I’m using macadamia oil instead of olive oil, because it’smuch lower in PUFAs and it tastes better IMO. I use about a tbsp of that a day. Sometimes two for cooking or just eating it straight.
I’m always experimenting. Changing my diet around is something I do more for curiousity’s sake than anything else. For a while I tried 80-10-10. It treated me pretty well. I’ve always been very cautious of dropping carbs too low.
For the last few weeks I’ve been at say, 70-20-10 (carbs as 10).
The all-meat Charles-esque diet sounds really sketchy, so naturally, I’ll be trying it in December!
Keep you posted. Interested to see if it’s just going to be an exercise in adrenal exhaustion or what.
If it doesn’t seem too traumatic, then its use as a therapeutic diet could be worthy of some serious consideration, such as the ketogenic diet that has been used for years to treat epileptics. Of course, such a diet has real potential for purposes of low blood glucose tumor-starvation, metabolic syndrome, etc.
God bless that Pip Galea. Pipparoni! Pip, Pip, Pooray!
Keep in touch and thanks for all the feedback and endorsements on AV skeptics. This blog has been blowing up the last two days.
I saw that Ray was into that. I doubt it makes much difference; however, I do like the refined stuff because it doesn’t have such a strong taste. Super-strong coconut oil gets old fast.
Thanks for the tip on the mac nut oil. I eat quite a lot of mac nuts, but haven’t tried the oil. I bet it tastes way better.
I mentioned the blog on BeyondPrice too. It’s not very active, but there are more members than AV-Skeptics.
I noticed that the virgin coconut oils go bad fast too. They develop a totally disgusting taste the longer you store them. If they’re really fresh, they’re OK, but they can start to taste off in days if you’re not careful. I liked the centrifuged and fermented coconut oils, but they seem to develop an off taste. They seem to absorb smells and things in the air, off your silverware and so on, like distilled water. So, they’re hard to get much good out of. Bulk sizes go bad before you can use them. I’ve never found a virgin coconut oil that doesn’t have this problem.
The macadamia oil is delicious. Here is what I use. If you’re not worried about refined oils, soap-making companies get it a lot cheaper. It has like 2-4% PUFA, similar to beef or butter fat. It has a mild nutty taste, not overpowering like olive oil or avocado oil.
http://www.macnutoil.com/
http://www.mac-nut-oil.com/
“I’m always experimenting. Changing my diet around is something I do more for curiousity’s sake than anything else.”
Yeah, I kind of got that impression. I’m much the same, always experimenting with different things. The low-residue idea’s really valuable, I think. And low-PUFAs. Your diet sounds a lot like Jan K. Have you heard of him? He’s called the Polish Atkins. He suggests potatoes as a great source of carbs. Or white flour. But he keeps the carbs low, like 5-10% and the protein low (like 10-15%). So, you are right in line with his ideas. He’s all about the fat, 80-85% fat.
I haven’t read your whole blog, so I apologize if this question has been answered elsewhere, but what is the rationale behind keeping the amounts of carbs and protein relatively equal? Is that just the result that has felt best through experimentation or is there a theoretical basis for it?
Mike,
There is a theoretical basis for it, and it does feel the best. The Zone diet by Barry Sears goes into the greatest detail on achieving equilibrium between insulin and glucagon for optimal blood sugar and hormone stability using near-equal portions of protein to carbohydrates.
Furthermore, the minimum amount of glucose used by the brain is almost identical to the daily protein requirements of the body.
These quotas are to be looked at on a per meal basis, not a daily basis. You are only as balanced and ‘in the zone’ as your last meal.
And the big mistake that Sears makes (other than being fat-phobic) is using fruit as a primary carbohydrate source. Fruit is very destabilizing to blood sugar, hormones, and overall body chemistry. The sweet taste is addictive. And a very large portion of people do not absorb fructose (fruit sugar) properly — which results in digestive problems, bacterial overgrowth of the small bowel, and chronic inflammation and immune system activation — not to mention resultant hypoglycemia.
These are the very things that Sears is trying to mitigate through high-dose fish oil and a “zone perfect meals.”
But the Zone is a real place. The only question, and it probably varies individually, is “how low in carbohydrates must you go?”
A good starting point is matching protein and carbohydrates in the form of starch (not simple sugars of any kind) and eating enough fat to satisfy appetite.
The most important element; however, is removal of all sweet tastes, stimulants, and alcohol. But it takes “entering the zone” to do that, thus the need for carbohdyrate and protein dosing.
"Fruit is very destabilizing to blood sugar, hormones, and overall body chemistry. The sweet taste is addictive."
Not everyone has these problems. I feel better with fruit juices than whole fruits. I am also fine using comb honey or "unheated" honey. My blood sugar is rock solid, even if I eat honey by itself. I don't get addicted to fruit at all, but I do find that the fiber is problematic for me, esp in berries.
"And a very large portion of people do not absorb fructose (fruit sugar) properly — which results in digestive problems, bacterial overgrowth of the small bowel, and chronic inflammation and immune system activation — not to mention resultant hypoglycemia."
The problem here is a poor balance of sugars, IMO. Things like apples and pears (esp juiced) cause sugar malabsorption. It's best to have a balanced fructose to glucose ratio like honey or grape juice. Berries are generally balanced, esp blue & blackberries. Some problems result from modern fruit cultivation that provides unripe fruits filled with defensive toxins. Unripe fruit has many other drawbacks.
Ray Peat feels that sugars are far better than starches. Ripe fruits, honey, and root vegetables are his primary selections. He limits the starch to an occasional potato, or some (non-enriched) white rice. He views starches as problematic in a number of ways, based on digestion and their effects on hormones. For example, starches maintain omega-6 levels in the body, whereas sugars create saturated fats, MUFAs, and Mead Acid (20:3 omega-9) which Ray views as a healthier substitute to omega-3 and omega-6. On high-sugar diets, VLDL triglycerides are 0-1% linoleic acid. On high-starch, the VLDL is 30-54% omega-6. Mainstream dogma says this is good, but to me it seems that sugars are healthier for human biochemistry.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/67/4/631.pdf
That is Ray's conclusion. It's far better to eat low-PUFA diet and to eat natural sugars instead of more starches. Aajonus's Primal Diet is also high in sugars (honey, milk), and low in starch. He only says to eat cooked starches if you are old and infirm. He has eaten a massive amount of unheated honey, like 12# per month, and advises many people to eat a similar amount.
I don't feel the best on a starchy diet, even if it's low in carbs. I feel better with unheated honey or strained juice or root vegetables. My starch intake is 0-20g/d. There are some people who can't tolerate sugar from food, but they might be the exception. I doubt that starch is always better than sugars. SOME starches might be better than SOME sugars for SOME people, but in the overall scheme, I think Ray Peat's right and the mainstream is wrong. Starches suck. Simple sugars get a bad rap. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet provides some clues. I'm also more inclined to believe Ray Peat, since he goes against almost every popular idea about diet.
http://raypeat.com/articles/
Maximilian Ledochowski estimates that 2/3 of the youngest generation are fructose malabsorbers. Up to half are asymptomatic.
Sugar consumption has greatly increased. Starch consumption has not. Some of the healthiest humans ever studied ate a diet of up to 80% starch. Our recent agrarian roots all point to regular starch consumption, and consumption of simple sugars only seasonally, during peak fruiting season. I’m not aware of any indigenous group that ate 12 f’ing pounds of honey per month. That is retarded. After overcoming sugar addiction myself I’ve come to this conclusion…
Honey is gross. Finding something that sweet to be palatable in the first place is a sign of problems.
Still, I’d be willing to entertain the notion that you tolerate fructose quite well and absorb it completely. However, having intolerance to legumes, grains, and other complex starches (like you and I both tend to have) is a symptom of fructose malabsorption.
The SCD is a joke built on the false assumption that complex sugars are harder to digest than simple sugars. That is false. Starchy carbs have the highest glycemic index because they are split into glucose most easily. They don’t even make it to the lower portions of the digestive tract unlike fructose and lactose. If I were to eat any form of simple sugar, which I won’t because the sweet taste will have me ripping open bags of oreos within days, I would choose dextrose (pure glucose), followed by honey due to its glucose to fructose ratio (greater than 1).
Folks I agree with in the starch vs. sugar debate…
John Yudkin
Kathleen DesMaisons
Diana Schwarzbein
Mark Pimentel
Donna Gates
Melvin Page
Ramiel Nagel
William Dufty
Nancy Appleton
Weston A. Price
Folks I don’t agree with…
Ray Peat
Aajonus Vonderplanitz
Bruce K.
Sorry dude. You’re not going to change my mind on that one. Enjoy that fruit juice and honey. I would alongside of you but I don’t have time to sit around crying all day, thinking about food, blowing my nose, and wheezing.
“The excess of calories over body building minerals is exceedingly high in sweets of various kinds regardless of their special branding and the methods of manufacture and storage. There is very little of the body building minerals in maple syrup, cane syrup from sugar or honey. They can all defeat an otherwise efficient dietary.”
-Weston A. Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, page 300.
“Sugar consumption has greatly increased. Starch consumption has not.”
Yes, but vegetable oil consumption also increased vastly in the last 100 years. Like 20-fold, I think. The increase for vegetable oils is greater than that for sugars. Most junk foods are loaded with PUFAs and/or trans fats.
“Some of the healthiest humans ever studied ate a diet of up to 80% starch.”
Yet many people find health improves by eliminating starches 100% (Primal Diet, paleo diets, SCD). Granted, some people can’t tolerate sugars, but that applies to all foods. People destroy themselves with refined sugars, artificial chemical sweetenres, and other junk. The question is whether unrefined sugars are inferior to starch as a source of carbs.
“I’m not aware of any indigenous group that ate 12 f’ing pounds of honey per month. That is retarded.”
Who cares what indigenous people ate? It is only a useful guide. They didn’t live in crowded, polluted cities. They didn’t have electricity or artificial lights or automobiles or stressful jobs. If you’re happier eating starches, fine. I believe there’s more justification to eating the way people ate prior to agriculture.
“Honey is gross. Finding something that sweet to be palatable in the first place is a sign of problems.”
This is your opinion, nothing more. Lots of people can’t digest starch and have a lot better health on paleo or non-starch diets like SCD. I find most starches to be gross. They are not palatable without butter or other fats. By themselves they taste bland and boring.
“Still, I’d be willing to entertain the notion that you tolerate fructose quite well and absorb it completely. However, having intolerance to legumes, grains, and other complex starches (like you and I both tend to have) is a symptom of fructose malabsorption.”
I didn’t say I was intolerant to grains or legumes. I feel better eating simple sugars like unheated honey. Starches do not taste good without fat, so I do not see their appeal. I would rather eat a stick of butter than a dry potato. That says something to me. Starches aren’t a food people naturally crave. They’re an acquired taste and many cultures took a long time to adapt them, like Europe. I think it makes more sense to avoid them than to base my diet on them, but I eat them for variety and taste.
“The SCD is a joke built on the false assumption that complex sugars are harder to digest than simple sugars.”
No, it’s based on the idea that people with damaged guts can’t digest certain foods. The diet doesn’t forbid complex sugars. It forbids processed / refined sugars, all grains, potatoes, soybeans, most other beans, and foods containing much lactose. Fruits, roots, honey, and certain legumes are allowed if they’re prepared properly. The SCD isn’t meant for everyone, but there’s no reason to think it would be unhealthy.
“You’re not going to change my mind on that one. Enjoy that fruit juice and honey. I would alongside of you but I don’t have time to sit around crying all day, thinking about food, blowing my nose, and wheezing.”
I’m not trying to convince youor anyone else of anything. Your problem, like AV, is that you assume everyone has the same problems as you and everyone should eat the same as you. I don’t sit around and cry, think about food, blow my nose, or wheeze. I’m alert, energetic, and happy. It’s good you have found what works for you.
The Weston Price quote doesn’t mean much unless he was looking at unheated honey, pref comb honey. I suspect he wasn’t. He was probably looking at the typical crap sold in stores. For me, raw honey works. I’m sorry it doesn’t for you, but that’s your problem, not mine.
Also, I have never “ripped open bags of oreos” or binged in Butterfingers after eating raw meat for a few days. I eat a small amount of fruit juice, because it works better for me than whole fruit. I have more stable energy from the juice, maybe because I have a fast metabolism, due to high-intensity interval training and other things. I’m not saying anyone else should eat the same, I’m saying it works for me. Starches have very little appeal for me. Without butter, they are not worth eating. So, why not just eat butter with meat and skip the starches?
Regardless of what you think, many have benefited from Ray Peat’s advice. He is able to give consultations, and gives a lot of advice for free, and he teaches. I’ve never heard of any people having a problem from eating the way he suggests. I’ve talked with people who ate the WAP diet and their health declined. Ray was able to help them when nobody else did. So, I give him credit and listen to his ideas, rather than the mainstream dogma that starches are better than sugars or PUFAs are better than saturated fats or any other nonsense. Everyone has to see what works for themselves.
I’m in control of what I eat and I never eat anything I don’t see as healthy. So, Oreo cookies and candy bars are not food to me. I would never eat them, no matter how hungry I got. What you’re describing is addiction. Not everyone’s addicted to sugars like that. Why do you act like we all have to live our lives as if we had the same problems you do? You’re like AV saying don’t eat fruit, because he has a problem with fruit. Don’t juice carrots, because he has a problem with it.
You’re unique. AV is unique. I’m unique. Eat what works for you and don’t pretend you’ve got the answers for everyone else in the world. Weston Price does not have all the answers. Nor does McCarrison or Schwarzbein or Yudkin or anyone else. It is all just pieces of the puzzle.
Regards,
Bruce
Excellent commentary Bruce.
I agree that I use my own experiences to translate what other people experience. I’m not trying to solve every problem, but take a step back and look at the general disease patterns, why refined foods cause the problems they do, and what can be done to reverse them.
My specialty is overcoming addiction more than anything, particularly to simple sugars and the other addictive tendencies that sugar consumption can lead to.
I do think sugarholism is very common. I do think that starch is preferable to a person with an issue there assuming they can digest them properly. I still believe that most starches, with the exception of fiber and oligosaccharides in beans digest more completely before they reach the digestive tract than lactose and fructose.
But if you are like you are, then there are probably 100 million people on earth that can benefit from what works for you. Same goes for me. That’s all we do, try to reach those people who have similar problems with a similar solution.
The main thing is just opening people up to the possibility that they don’t have to eat certain things from certain food groups to be healthy.
They can eat a high-fat diet, a high-starch diet, or 12 pounds of honey per month and still meet their needs and avoid debilitating illness for much longer than they could have otherwise.
There are more options than what My Pyramid recommends.
I’m simply trying to find the biggest pieces of the puzzle. I would never make the mistake of calling any natural food unhealthy. But just like you, choosing some over others works beter.
What problems do you see with the Primal Diet, other than honey for many people I presume? Do you think the raw whole eggs and vegetables juice cause trouble or do any of the other foods? One problem I’ve noted is his advice to eat constantly in large amounts. He advises “If you’re not vomiting, you’re eating.” That is asking for trouble IMO, on any diet. You should never force yourself to eat. He’s having people liquefy meats in a food processor so they can drink large amounts rapidly. This seems like a grotesque mixture of a raw diet and competitive eating!
Aajonus probably has trouble with people undereating.
Understandably so, most people are under the impression that the less you eat the healthier you will be. This can be harmful to digestion and disturb the natural cleansing waves in the digestive tract as desribed best by Mark Pimentel of Cedars-Sinai.
Still, force-feeding does have the ability to speed up the metabolism, lower cortisol levels, and in-turn lower insulin. Not that you should do it for the rest of your life, but for a month it can be very therapeutic, even if it causes substantial weight gain — yet another of AV’s practices (going up and down in weight that is).
Most people who’ve I’ve talked to on Primal, which isn’t many, have had some constipation issues. Another seemed to have gone super hyperthyroid and had digestive problems that he’s still struggled to clear up.
I don’t know. His diet has many benefits for the select few who would be open to trying it in the first place. Emphasis on few.
I’m more into finding simpler and less extreme ways to help the average person living off of Cheetos and diet coke improve their health.
I ate massive amounts on the Primal Diet and still lost weight. I ate at least as much food as I had been eating on Atkins style diet, plus adding raw milk, honey, and green vegetable juice, I really dove into it. I probably still was not eating enough, because over a year and a half I kept losing weight slowly. Most probably can’t eat enough on the Primal Diet, as the raw food is less stimulating and/or palatable. It requires force-feeding to work. And that yo-yo dieting is probably more harmful in the long run.
How much raw food do you eat? Do you eat raw butter or just cheese? Are you still eating some of the meat raw?
Actually doing full-fledged Primal would be pretty tough. Just getting through the chewing part of whatever solid food you’re eating was brutal when I tried some of it. I made it to about 90% raw calories, but didn’t fare well. I found raw vs. cooked to have its place as a secondary focus, not a primary focus. For me, my primary focus is no sweets, even meal-spacing, calorically-equal meals, eat before I get hungry, etc. Being consistent is my greatest asset while dosing carbohydrates to what seems like the perfect amount to get me through to the next meal.
Currently I eat some raw food. I have raw butter sometimes when I can get it. Sometimes not. I eat some raw meat and some raw fish, but only a couple times a week at most. I’ve never noticed much of a difference between raw vs. cooked. I do think it is essential when applied to sugars that require enzymatic action to be digested (lactose, fructose, etc. but not glucose)
“Actually doing full-fledged Primal would be pretty tough. Just getting through the chewing part of whatever solid food you’re eating was brutal when I tried some of it.”
I mainly ate ground beef and lamb, but I also ate some fish, pork and livers. The trick is not to even bother chewing very much. The Eskimos didn’t. They just tore off pieces, chew them very briefly, then swallowed. Some meats are tough, I don’t get people who say raw meats are tender, and cooking makes them tough. They must be getting meat with all the tough parts cut off of them, because some meats are very tough.
“I do think it is essential when applied to sugars that require enzymatic action to be digested (lactose, fructose, etc. but not glucose)”
So, are cooked fruits harmful? Or do you mean for people with digestive problems? Or just for you? Some people like Walter Voegtlin think it’s best to cook fruits. The SCD also advises cooking fruits and veggies for sensitive people. They don’t care if honey is heated, and prefer that it be strained and clear.
My guess would be that cooking of fruit and vegetables specifically is helpful because it breaks down the fiber matrix somewhat. That’s why grandma cooked the hell out of everything. There’s something instinctual about peeling and cooking the crap out of vegetables for sure.
Actually eskimos in time of WP did not have a good health.
“Not only did they have bigger livers to handle the additional work but their urine volumes were also typically larger to get rid of the extra urea.”
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=
Actually WP provided very superficial observations of health of different groups of people.
very intersting, thanks for the addition. will be reading
Masai men in time of WP had no good health ether:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/26.abstract
“The hearts and aortae of 50 Masai men were collected at autopsy. These pastoral people are exceptionally active and fit and they consume diets of milk and meat. The intake of animal fat exceeds that of American men. Measurements of the aorta showed extensive atherosclerosis with lipid infiltration and fibrous changes but very few complicated lesions. The coronary arteries showed intimal thickening by atherosclerosis which equaled that of old U.S. men. The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more than compensate for this disease. It is speculated that the Masai are protected from their atherosclerosis by physical fitness which causes their coronary vessels to be capacious.”