Tuesday, October 28, 2014

it is as i expected

Bill Lagakos recently tweeted the link to a study which demonstrated that rye flour was less problematic than wheat.

Now, I'm not going to pull a Neolithic and back off my basic philosophy, as so many previous-paleos have done -- I'm still fully convinced that avoiding grains, "industrial seed oils" and non-whole-fruit fructose is worth the effort.  But in the world in which we live, if we don't huddle at home all the time, it IS an effort.  It becomes indescribably tedious to CONSTANTLY ask what is in that sauce, or if the fish is wild-caught, or are the eggs cooked in real butter....

It's a question of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good ... or at least the tolerable.

Those who really NEED to avoid certain foodstuffs are in a different category, of course.  The celiac must ALWAYS avoid gluten.  Those whose health demands that they feed their brains or hearts ketones don't have the luxury of being flexible.  I'm LUCKY, and I know it.  My health issues have more to do with getting enough of certain nutrients and less with banishing even the tiniest quantities of the NADs ... especially since I discovered nicotine gum as a remedy for histamine crises.

Basically-healthy individuals are the bane of the paleo blogosphere -- in general, they assume that if they can tolerate something, then everyone should be able to do the same.  THEY'RE WRONG. 

Middle-of-the-road people like me, I've learned, can be as bad.  Thanks to many bloggers with intractable problems like constant hunger or trigger foods, I've learned how very lucky I AM -- I can have the occasional fried food or dessert in a restaurant SO LONG AS I COMPENSATE.  Many people don't have this luxury, and I'm not egotistical enough to claim they could if only they'd ... oh, dose themselves with RS, or get their vitamins, or get fecal therapy, or ... fill in the blank.

Life is a learning experience ... or ought to be.

But back to rye!  Its proteins are not as damaging (to me) as those of wheat, but it's still potentially problematic to the sensitive -- Petro tried the WAPF tricks with it, and STILL it isn't tolerable to his family.  AND it's still high-carb.  This is where the compensation part comes in!  IF i'm not actively trying to lose weight (and i'm in holding-pattern mode right now), I can have a supper of Welsh rarebit on my own home-made sourdough 100%-rye bread if I've been so good as to keep the rest of the day's menu VLC. 

Yesterday I would have felt REEEEEALLY guilty eating the delightful German lunch I did, had I not been "good" the rest of the day.  We drove down to Hermann MO to enjoy the glorious weather, autumn color, and charming historical sites.  Googling "best restaurant in Hermann" presented me with several good choices, but being Monday some of them were closed; the Vintage restaurant at Stone Hill Winery sounded great though, and we LOVE good German food so....

We ate sauerbraten and wuersts and schnitzels and rotkohl ... AND potatoes, and a bit of rye bread for dessert.  We accompanied it with part of a bottle of Old Vine Reserve Norton (took the rest home).  Having walked quite a bit that morning, I experienced no sense of guilt.  Supper was an ounce or two of Kerrygold's delicious cheddar with another glass of the wine (breakfast had been a LC omelette). 

I wouldn't do this EVERY day, but occasionally I enjoy it immensely.  As I tell friends and family, if I eat exemplarily paleo-LC most of the time, I can have a self-indulgent blowout from time to time without feeling like a failure.

25 comments:

  1. I occasionally eat a thin slice of a rye bread (like once a week to test new loaf). I bake it weekly because I think it is less damaging for my husband who can't imagine eating soup or salad without a bread. Honestly, I suspect I can eat rye bread more often without any harm while keeping my diet perfectly LC, but from previous experiences I know how easy it is to slippery-slide into "whatever" mood. It took almost three month for my finger joint to stop being painful after eating a wheat bread in Russia on ONE occasion. So yes, rye bread is way safer. Probably, with self-made one you know exactly what is it there. Most rye breads are a mix of a rye and a wheat because a 100% rye dough by itself is very unmanageable by normal bread-making equipment (sticks to everything, doesn't form a ball) in more amounts than it is necessary for a single loaf or two, just gluten can be added for better handling and rising, it could be left for a fermentation shorter or longer time. Mine ferments slowly in a refrigerator, I add a cup or 1/2 of a rye flour every day for fermentation to continue slowly, my bread is very sour, when you sniff it close, it irritates nasal passages exactly like sniffing an open vinegar container. It is possible to make a rye bread much quicker like on the next day or even within 6 hours which will be less sour.

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    1. [nodding] making sourdough rye HAS to be done the old-fashioned way -- it simply CANNOT be done with a home breadmaking machine, and commercial methods are probably impossible too. How long it has to sour on the kitchen counter is dependent upon weather -- usually I allow almost a week, but in summer or winter it can vary a lot. The last rising of the loaf I like to do overnight. :-)

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  2. Slippery slope potential for me, so I just avoid it. Each must create their own n = 1. :)

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    1. that's for sure! we each have our own tolerances!

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  3. For my mom a rye bread is like a chocolate for you,Gwen. She is addicted to it ,plain and simple, but indifferent to the white bread. I suspect fermented foods are addictive on its own, but most are relatively harmless, and it is possible to get addicted to fermented grains for that reason, so it is better to avoid it in general . I can consume way more sauerkraut than shredded cabbage with the same amount of salt, pickled tomatoes more than salted raw ones, my most addictive fermented vegetables are fermented eggplants, but I suspect it is not the food which everybody would agree to eat . I can eat more cured meat than a fresh meat.

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    1. that IS an interesting idea -- possibly it's because (as Atkins suggested) we often crave things we're slightly allergic to...?

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    2. I judge about it on a gut level, and in my guts I don't feel it is about allergies. From what I observe, different people have different degree of interest in a meat eating,and, probably, different body requirement for meat, like not everyone is crazy about eating sugar. I guess that the more meat a person needs, the more he/she is seeking salty and umami flavored foods, it could be a marker for being less adapted for starchy foods.
      It is all a 100% speculation, or , may be a link into a scavenger past.

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  4. Interesting--I'd never heard of fermented foods being addictive. I find wheat to be a trigger, especially in the form of brownies. And no, I haven't been visiting any of Denver's many pot dispensaries.

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    1. It is my own speculation based on observations. I guess people are naturally seek an umami meaty flavor, it is present in fermented foods but not all such foods are as satiating as meat, so people eat more if food is fermented even when it is basically rotten, like blue cheese.

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    2. :-) I've never had pot baked in brownies, though I've heard of doing that for decades -- talk about a slippery slope!!!

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    3. May be addiction is the wrong term, "strong preference" could be a better choice. Humans have a strong preference for fermented foods over fresh ones. While we appreciate freshness in fruits, vegetables, cottage cheese, chicken, mozzarella, we don't crave that food, unlike prosciutto, aged stake meat, aged cheese, vine, dried tomatoes, fermented vegetables.

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  5. Paleo approach is rightfully criticized for being not logical enough, I do not consider myself a paleo person, but I support the people who decide to avoid modern foods on principle, unless they are nutrition deficient (like some people try to live on a bulletproof coffee, which contains only modern ingredients, btw) . It makes them think about what to put into their mouth and saves from slippery-slope situations, like thinking - "People say "sugar is poison", while no one ODed on it or went into rehab, may be one cup is too much, but sure one sugarcube is fine". Sure, one sugarcube wouldn't harm anyone, but when nothing is off limits, it is harder to navigate modern environment where food is almost pushed into your mouth left and right. It is our nature to be interested in an available food, and self-restricting yourself to only organic foods, only self-cooked foods, or only not-modern foods helps eliminate excessive food choices . There are some neurotics who may start to think that every food is dangerous, but there is no way to satisfy everyone.

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    1. it's certainly possible for ANY eating plan to be abused, if one has a physiology or psychology that's piqued by it! To me, Paleo is shorthand for evolutionarily correct; the extreme purists make it sound ridiculous, which is too bad -- so many people could benefit from the idea who are turned off by them!

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  6. OT, but important: what happens when someone goes off their levothyroxine for a few days?

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    1. we need Lauren for the official statement, but when I went off it, I didn't notice "slowing down" for quite a few days. if I remember correctly, T4 hangs around much longer than T3.

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  7. The half-life of levothyroxine is one week, so you may notice a slight "dip" 1 wk - 10 d after missing doses... But if you're not relying on it for total thyroid replacement, it may be subclinical.
    I take mine 1st thing in AM (empty stomach), no food or drink for 1 hr. Calcium supplements, multivitamins & iron can interfere w/absorption.

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  8. What if someone has several slow thyroid symptoms to begin with--constipation, cold hands, etc.?

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    1. Even though symptoms are important, you have to remember that a LOT of things cause both! I know many people use "cold hands and feet" as an important sign, but I find that if i'm "on the low side" it's the fact that I CAN'T WARM THEM UP that's really significant. ;-) And after all, at this time of year it's rather normal to start feeling colder....

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    2. Thanks for the replies, Tess and Val. Mom wasn't feeling right the other night, and I was wondering if that might have been the cause.

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  9. I advocate a food-restriction mentality because I judge from my own experience - due to the necessity to avoid many foods in my childhood (BTW, that diet could be described as a low-reward one because food was very bland, everything was steamed or boiled, no tomato-based souses or spices,limited salt, no chocolate) in order to control eczema and gallbladder inflammation, it is easier for me to avoid different set of foods now in order to feel healthier and be safer from regaining lost weight. I believe that in modern environment people have more chances to stay lean and healthy if they have restrictive attitude toward their food.There was a writer who decided that in each of his sentences no word would start with the same letter. The main purpose was to create an artificial restriction which would force him to work harder on the choice of most fitting words in his writings.
    I guess some of restrictions which people follow may be not important from the nutritional perspective or fit the criteria for artificialness, but being right from a practical point of view and facilitate the adherence to the diet. I think that considering some foods complitely off daily consumption helps to exercise general mindfulness in food choices, like the writer forced himself to think more about his prose - it is about a safe behavior, not "safe food". I have no doubts, for example, that a bread could be the part of a LC diet. William Banting, who ate two dry toasts a day (and avoided pork just because his doc told him so), is a good example. I guess I can eat a slice of a rye bread daily too, but I also like the taste of a buckwheat, potatoes, fruits, and theoretically an appropriate amount of everything should not be a problem, and a candy hardly contains more than a tsp of a sugar, but the total carbohydrate count of such foods could be way more than I need . It is also easier to reach for another piece of bread after you have first one and start a slippery-slope sliding.
    It is easier to follow a diet when it is not necessary to agonize thinking about balancing each meal , and just following some set of rules. Set of rules is a working tool, one rule picked from the whole set may be found not important, even unnecessary, like pork exclusion by Banting, but it doesn't affect the effectiveness of the whole set.

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    1. :-) limiting the breadth of my diet saved me a lot of time and energy when my husband was working out of town .. and helped me lose weight very efficiently. Now that he's retired and constantly at home with me, we spend much more time and money planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up!

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  10. There is a substantial amount of BS flying around in a nutritional blogosphere. I have been irritated with it numerous times myself. One blog is even complitely devoted to finding such nutritional BS and tearing apart sets of rules others use for their diets. Well, people have different hobbies,why not that one? I remember agreeing with that particular blogger on numerous occasions because nonsense is everywhere (I bet most remember BS about getting "battery acid" into your body from eating oats). The general conclusion which you could make chasing nonsense - you can loose weight and even keep it off on a wide variety of regiments, without restricting nothing but the total amount of consumed calories without following any rules which could be easily picked apart. The irony is - the set of rules aimed at restricting calories is not particularly efficient one and could be picked apart as well.
    I guess it is a matter of choosing priorities, trying different things, adhering to what works and choosing the behavior which puts you in an adherent mode. If some people imagine themselves being caveman while drinking coffee with a cream and a sugar substitute and refusing free donuts, cakes and pizza in a lunch room on that ground, while sitting in a cubicles, and it prevents them from growing a spare tire around a middle - we could be in piece with it even though Neanderthals would grab donuts right away and probably would spit that coffee. I started to look at the "paleo" movement as a beneficial group game, many games are stupid from a logical perspective - what is the useful purpose of grabbing or hitting that ball, if you think about it? However, engaging into spots playing is often beneficial for physical and mental health, and telling players to stop fooling around could be logical but not practical or useful. Another irony in the current situation - we try to look for past natural practices in order for not behaving naturally - staffing ourselves with all food which is available for us.

    I have more to say on the subject, but my comment is already too long.

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    1. not to long, as far as i'm concerned! would you care to write a guest post on the subject? i think we'd all enjoy it!

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    2. Probably it was the first time when I exceeded the allowed limit. I guess I will accept your offer because I wanted to continue on the subject of attitude toward food restrictions. The situation with the such topic is connected with your previous blog post about safe fabrics for children's pajamas. What if somebody gets hurt? I will write slowly because I just can't do it fast. Probably, I will use big portion of my last comment which I had to brake in two parts.
      To tell you the truth, I could need some more self-reassurance in order to make myself to come to peace with the things people claim in order to motivate themselves to adhere to their life-style. The blogger who enjoys sticking her finger into the holes of their arguments has a lot of room for amusement.So, I also wanted to comment more about diet-beneficial behavior.

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