physiological/dietary hint

"If a woman is fat, fair and forty, and has borne some children, she is the type most likely to be full of gallstones," reminisced Dr. Donaldson of "Strong Medicine" after a long and successful career.  I believe this fact contains hints about perennial truths of modern life as well as compelling dietary advice.

If you want to keep your figure, having children is one of the worst things you can do to your body.  Between Nature (flooding you with hormones and robbing your body of nutrients) and Conventional Wisdom ("chow down! you're eating for two!"), it's a rare individual who comes out the other side without laying down body fat which is progressively more difficult to get rid of after each pregnancy.

Middle age, through the niggardliness of enzyme secretion and even MORE bad hormonal signals, piles on the pounds all by itself.  Women who had remained effortlessly normal-weight up to perimenopause finally get an idea of what some of us have dealt with all our lives, when with no change of diet or habit their body composition goes straight to hell.

As for those of us who were willing and able to fight fat-growth, well, we have tended to spend decades in calorie-counting and non-fat consumption, losing some pounds and gaining some back, over and over till our metabolisms are thoroughly confused about whether it can afford to let us burn body-fat or not.  And we know what causes gallstones -- yes, all those low-fat-eating years when bile sat in storage in underused gallbladders.

This brings us to the "fair" portion of the introductory sentence -- women whose forebears have spent thousands of years in northern climes, where their ancestrally-dark skin, hair and eyes have been bleached by countless generations of seeking to absorb optimal quantities of sunlight.  Women who are, genetically, separated by millennia from large amounts of plant foods in the diet, until agriculture finally reached the "frozen north" (which was significantly later than in places like the "Fertile Crescent").  Women who have no business eating a year-round load of concentrated carbohydrates of ANY kind, let alone the garbage that passes for food these days.

RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES we have seen what happens to this kind of people when "novel modern foodstuffs" are introduced to a gene-stock not accustomed to a high-carb diet -- Cleave wrote about it, Stefansson wrote about it, countless missionaries wrote about it....  People in North America and Pacific islands and other places that were not invaded till comparatively recently, who took to the addictive and easy-to-prepare carbs of "civilization" and twenty years later WHAM -- unprecedented diseases completely destroy their well-being!

"Fair" women should not eat industrial and agricultural foods on a regular basis.  To put that in LESS archaic and exclusionary terms, women, even more than men, should eschew the neolithic agents of disease, ESPECIALLY women whose ancestors have most recently adopted an agricultural lifestyle.  We have fewer hormonal buffers to protect our bodies from the damage that these things wreak.  Our bodies have built-in protections for survival of ourselves and our children, but they are no match for the sheer destructiveness of modern life.

If we could find an objective and unbiased jury before whom we could present our evidence, i believe they'd come to the same conclusion i have:  products of agriculture as well as the kind of society that agriculture (including pastoralism) has empowered, are SINGULARLY bad for the health and welfare of women.  We've been encouraged to breed excessively while undermining our ability to do so in a healthy fashion.  We've lost our individual dignity, autonomy and sense of sorority because of the "need" to compete for high-quality mates (i.e., capability of passing the best genes to the next generation).  We've been indoctrinated to believe that the very things which are "killing" us are in fact good -- like paternalistic religion, libertarianism, nationalism ... and wholesomewholegrains, antioxidantfruitsandvegetables, hearthealthyvegetableoils and the low-fat diets which undeniably give us gallstones.

i agree with Zoe

Britain has been having troubles with their processed-food supply like the one we had with our infamous "pink slime," but in their case it's worse because the offending ingredient is not even a bovine product (sorry, Cow!).  Horse-meat has been found where people thought they were eating beef.  My indignation doesn't have as much to do with the "ewwww factor" but with trust and disclosure.

There doesn't seem to be anything actually WRONG with eating horse or slime (nutritionally) if you compare it with eating sucrose and wheat flour.  If those pairs of "foods" were my only choices, you can easily guess which i'd pick.

But i'm of the opinion that truth in labeling is important -- sometimes there are darned good reasons for eating a prepared meal, and people should have informed choice.  A lot of people don't read labels, and ... frankly, if they don't care enough after they've been alerted (and i'm not shy about alerting people -- my FB posts are full of that), let the buyer beware.  But when you DO read labels and you DON'T know that "spices" can mean "MSG" as an example ... to me that's wrong.  Some people's health can be seriously undermined by the duplicity of BigFood.

The serious snobs will say, well just don't eat processed food!  Eat what you've seen growing with your own eyes!  Know your farmer! ... All well and good actually -- IF YOU CAN.  Some people can't.  Some people have so many other things in their lives requiring attention, they HAVE to get on as best they can.  Even people like me who can take the time and spend the money to source healthy whole foods, SOMETIMES have to cut corners!  It's called "LIFE."

So, all you libertarians -- we NEED central entities to make those "smart successful businesses" treat the consumer with a decent degree of fairness.  We need those smart successful businessmen to add a little integrity to the mix.  Zoe thinks we're fools to trust processed-food manufacturers, and she's got a point ... BUT if they're breaking laws to ensure their "success" we should be able to trust that the bastards WILL be nailed to the wall.

...Anecdotally, mule is supposed to be a better meal than horse.  It's said that explorers, emigrants, hunters and trappers in the "old west" preferred using mules for several reasons, only one of which was that if things went bad ... mule tasted GOOD.  ;-)

back to "normal" -- whatever that is

:-)  At least, i'm back to an Atkins-level carb intake.  Yesterday, black coffee for breakfast, lunch a "Cuban chicken melt" with mushrooms on the side and decaf to drink, then a couple of glasses of red wine with the dish our family calls "fake stroganoff," a "paleo biscuit" and generously-buttered broccoli.  Today's menu will resemble the classic Strong Medicine regimen.

I still have more subcutaneous fat on my belly than i've had for months.  :-(  Tomorrow i MAY have guts enough to get on the bathroom scale, but i'm not promising anything.

What with all the vegetable matter i've been consuming this past week, i have less-happy intestines and gut-bugs than usual.  My allergies are much worse, too.  The vague aches in some muscle groups are back.  2012 has been eye-opening for me in how i've observed my body to perform on different foodstuffs!  The only things that don't have ANY downside are fatty ruminant meat and water ... just as Dr. Donaldson wrote half a century ago.

It's fun to break the rules for a short time -- a change is as good as a rest, you know -- but once you discover what your body will put up with to maintain a decent quality-of-living, to stray from it very long is just plain DUMB.  ... And for the record, i did NOT run out and try to buy a final box of Twinkies.  Those things are NASTY.

plant rant ;-)

I tend to smirk when i hear of recommendations that our diets be of "mostly plants."  WHY?  Because this is a sop to nutritional powers-that-be, a sort of middle ground we can all agree on?  (Tra-la-la....)  A gesture that shows how reasonable and moderate we are?  A tipping of the hat to agriculturalists and the vegetarian agenda?  Screw dat.

I just began to read "Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion" by Dr. Beaumont in 1839.  I'm already amused, just from perusing the table of contents.  Then there's this:  "The facility of digestion of different articles of diet, and the quantity of nutrient principles which they contain, have been subjects of some discrepance of opinion among physiologists.  They have settled down, however, into a belief, probably as near the truth as practicable, that animal food is more readily assimilated, and affords more nutrition in a given quantity, than vegetable or farinaceous food."  IF WE KNEW THIS SHIT BY 1839, WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL ARGUING ABOUT IT?

Because convincing us that peasant food is good for us, keeps us peasants.  Weak, dumb, sick, docile ... and pouring more and more money into the pockets of people who sell us the cheap carbohydrate foods, who are in bed with the doctors and medical researchers, who are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, who are in bed with politicians on every level and in every field.

How i and a growing number of others in the VLC community eat is a slap in the face to the "health-" and junkfood-promoting portions of our societies. We refuse to play.  We won't dance.  We WILL NOT participate in their weakening, pathology-producing rituals of mutual acceptance and social bonding over CIAB.  We're renegades.

Our WOE gives us power, and societies HATE individuals with power.  We can do without the "kool-aid" so where can they come at us, to subjugate us again?  I'm sure they'll try to think up something.

Oh -- when we end up in the concentration camp being fed "their" diet, remember what we learned from the Kitavans:  eat your carbs in one big meal in the evening, so when the glucose/insulin levels go down you can burn fat for the other 22 hours of the day.  ;-)

too tired to think -- so i'm blogging! ;-)

Yes, i'm being facetious....  I hope that i DO think adequately before i write, most of the time.

I just wanted to drop a line about the diets of dogs.  While out driving today, getting breakfast then shopping to restock the meat drawer, we drove past the place where i customarily buy Spenser's food and treats.  Something made me think about a friend who has mentioned that her dog has diabetes.

DIABETES IN DOGS???  This is just plain outrageous.  Of all the "diseases of civilization," doggie diabetes is just something that generally leaves me with my mouth hanging open, speechless.

Read the labels of mainstream, even high-end dogfood "products" and you'll see how it could happen.  An awful lot of the chows read like the labels of breakfast cereal.  One otherwise-acceptable treat had sugar as an ingredient.  What kind of idiot manufacturer thinks that sugar is a reasonable additive to DOG TREATS?

A few years ago when i ditched grains (for the most part) myself, i decided that it was even more absurd for Spense to eat them as it is for me.  I looked into a raw diet (which i personally believe is the optimal one), but decided that it needed to be easier for others to feed him when i'm not around, and therefore compromised on a kibble which contains some vegetables but not grains.  I went to Taste of the Wild, and it has definitely been beneficial for him -- no more problems with his anal glands, cleaner teeth, less itchiness, lower body fat ... and he likes it very well.  I'm pleased.  Finding the ideal treat is more difficult, as availability comes and goes when i find one i really approve.  I should probably just buy meat on sale and dehydrate it for him.

Really -- if you have a pet, DO think about what's in the stuff you feed him/her!  Grain products are not an evolutionarily-appropriate diet for dogs or cats.  And as for vegetarian diets for obligate carnivores...!  [groan]

horrible American food and dietary habits!!!

I'm in San Francisco for another visit this week.  It ain't N'Orleans, but we haven't had a bad meal yet. This is part of why i get a little annoyed with sweeping statements about how bad "American" food is, and how it's no wonder so many people are fat, seeing as how we eat fastfood all the time.

HUH?  News to me....

The Americas, in fact, have an awe-inspiring culinary heritage as a result of being the "melting pot of the world."  That statement may sound like a piece of self-important fatuousness, but like most banal truisms it has a basis in fact.  When people came here from all over the globe, they brought their food traditions -- and recipes -- with them.  The magic happened when old-world dishes couldn't be made exactly as they were before, and new-world ingredients were added in an attempt to replace the unobtainable.

Can ANYONE deplore the addition of pumpkins ... tomatoes ... CHOCOLATE to the world's collective cuisine?  I even stand staunchly behind potatoes and maize (if it's properly nixtamalized...).  Stevia.  Turkeys.  Why fixate on Dr. Pemberton's contribution to international culture and forget the rest?  And why conflate greedy businessmen trying to make a fortune off a cheap product, with creative purveyors of outstanding cuisine?

Jokes (and prejudices) aside, there's a wealth of great food here.  If you can't find it, you don't know how to look.  In some of the most out-of-the-way, unlikely places one may find a jewel, and some of the shabbiest dives serve the best food -- i could tell you stories....  Customers flock to our farmers' markets, which are packed with beautiful locally-produced foods of every variety.  Grass-fed beef, pastured pork, poultry and eggs, raw milk (where legal) are eagerly sought by people in-the-know, who impatiently sit on waiting-lists for an opportunity to buy.

Yes, a LOT of people eat McDonald's "food."  Most people don't eat it often, though.  They grab a burger or some doughnuts when they're on the highway or vacationing in a strange place, because they know what they'll be getting, and these places are EVERYWHERE.  Pizza becomes a "treat," when you don't allow yourself to eat it but once a year.  Ditto for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  These are things we picnicked on when we skipped classes and went to the park instead; we sat on the grass and listened to Chicago or Crosby, Stills & Nash on transistor radios, and "made out" in public to the shocked disbelief of our elders....

The only "people" i know who really seem to LIKE fastfoods are children of a certain stage of development, and i suspect it has a lot to do with the rarity of their visits, the fact that they don't get to drink soda with meals at home, the especially-enticing playground equipment, and the collectible toys that come with the "meals."  My grandchildren have the same enthusiasm for McD's that my own kids did; none of them has ever eaten like this regularly, because responsible parents (and there ARE a lot of them here, despite the poor advice they get about childrearing) don't allow it as a generality.  This stuff is designed to entice kids, and SOME kids (far from all) bullyrag their parents into going there SOMETIMES.  Especially when vacationing.

But "bad American food"?  It's out there, but it's pretty easy to avoid, too.  Next time you're in St. Louis, go to Billie's Fine Foods -- it's an old-school diner, and it has one of the best omelettes i've ever tasted, the Supreme.  Highly reminiscent of a supreme pizza, as a matter of fact.  At the Deja Vu in New Orleans, get the Deja Vu omelette (not available during Mardi Gras week, though).  These are not places you'll find in touristy areas -- you actually have to look for them, google-search good restaurants in strange towns and read the reviews.  Of course, if your bus is leaving in 20 minutes and you're ravenous, McDonald's and Cici's Pizza IS right there, and you know what you're getting....

“More people are overweight than undernourished.”

I think that part of the reason for the "obesity epidemic" is that people are BOTH.  Over the last 100 years (and especially the last 40), Americans have been told to eat the most remarkable collection of garbage imaginable; no wonder people don't have a normal appetite anymore.

At the end of the 19th century, it was fashionable to have a little "meat on your bones" and it was considered attractive.  Not absolutely OBESE, like poor William Banting, but plumpness was definitely a good thing.  It made one look healthy.  In his early low-carbohydrate book, "Eat and Reduce," Dr. Victor Lindlahr recalled the showgirls of this era being downright ... big.  He credits the First War and its aftermath for the social conditions which encouraged us all to shed our furbelows and want to slim down; things haven't significantly changed in that department.

Lindlahr's diet was different from Banting's in that it restricted calories, not just carbohydrate-rich foods.  Still, those foods were REAL; nutrient-dense meats, eggs, lots of vegetables and moderate fruits, and he allowed saccharine in one's tea/coffee if desired.  If he banned butter, at least he didn't encourage margarine.

The second war did more damage, in my opinion.  In Europe there were real food shortages, and the switch from normal choices to make-do's that were actually available is thoroughly understandable.  In America the situation was just plain flakey.  I STILL don't understand the rationing situation; granted, the food-supply was screwed up by the "dustbowl" thing, but i find it hard to believe that it was THAT damaged.  If there was enough food here before, why did it require that much MORE food just because our young men were eating it in a different venue and wearing a uniform?

Whatever the cause (profiteering comes to mind), people were encouraged to consume less meat, eggs, butter and so on, and more "fillers."  There were even drives to collect used cooking fats for the war effort.  All the "Allies" (as well as the Axis, i'm sure) became used to eating crap -- it may have been an unpleasant change, but it was considered patriotic in America and it was unavoidable in Britain.

At any rate, this seems to be when ordinary Americans started eating garbage on a large scale.  Convenience foods began to be popular in the oh-so-modern 1920s, but the advent of television encouraged it beyond anything seen before.  The work of the junk-food-manufacturers and their advertisers has only gotten more sophisticated and insidious since.  People now believe snacking to be a normal and necessary activity ... with a drink constantly at one's elbow all day.

J Stanton has described and explained only too well how eating foods which provide incomplete nutrition promote obesity and weakness; additions from me are unnecessary.  (If you somehow have missed it, go to gnolls.org and look at the left-hand column for links.)  In a nutshell -- it IS VERY possible to be overweight and undernourished.

It's all about eating products instead of FOOD.  No one food is making the whole world fat -- not even fructose -- but the tendency to eat products seems to lead in that direction.

radical health improvement from diet X

Every time i hear about a spectacular health turn-around after a person changes his/her dietary style, the first thing i want to know is, exactly what was changed?

Yep, a Real Home Cooking diet, in which whole foods replace CIAB will make the whole family feel, look and perform better, even if it contains the worst grains and beans in the world.  Most plant toxins aren't nearly as nasty as some of the man-made ones which flood the food supplies of modern countries!

I heard the success story of Terry Wahls, and i couldn't be more happy for her!  Especially considering her profession, this is a coup for advocates of nutritionally-based medical treatment; she's harder to shrug off than most of us grunts.  AND she's very vocal about her situation; :-D  ...i do so admire the people who get out there and fight for what i believe in, but into which i am not willing to pour my whole life's-energy.  But do i think that her diet is optimal for universal health?  No, at least not for me.

The "wow factor" of dietary change frequently depends upon your starting point.  Mine has been changing step-wise, and to see how my health has improved i have to search my memory for details that are confounded by (comparative) youth, fitness, etc.

I started out from i categorized above as a Real Home Cooking diet.  I grew up eating white bread and corn oil, but at least we always COOKED.  Frequent eating-out didn't happen till about twenty years ago, and i had been fighting the battle of the bulge before that.  As food-and-supplement fads came and went, i never noticed a significant improvement with ANYTHING until i added systemic enzymes to my daily routine.  I suspect i was developing fibromyalgia; i would sit with my feet up and vaguely ache all over.  My chronic fatigue i attributed to the hypothyroidism.

So, first enzymes actually promoted some improvement, then my doctor recommended iodine supplementation, and that helped much more.  I went on Atkins next, and my general improvement was immensely noticeable.  No more morning brain fog, significantly improved allergies, better energy, and weight-loss without constant hunger.  I was a FAN.

The biggest reason that low-carbing didn't result in all the weight-loss i could ever have wanted was the temptation to add foods in too soon.  One sees all those opportunities to again eat the things the low-fat-me had been denying myself so long....  And, as an enthusiastic cook, i was also hot to adapt old recipes to the new philosophy, and got caught in the carb-creep that is so hard to resist.  I screwed up.

I don't remember what led me to Mark's Daily Apple, but it was my portal to the paleo/primal world.  I no longer link his site from mine, but it's still one of the first to which i send my paleo-curious friends.  Like so many other eating plans, if you go straight to it from the SAD your results will be absolutely stunning:  i didn't, so mine were much less noticeable.  Not perfect, and nor is the Perfect Health Diet ... for me.

What DID produce jaw-dropping IMPROVEMENT for me was the Personal Paleo Code program, and the Strong Medicine protocol i tried after it.  In my case, i found out that health challenges have been all about dietary intolerances and "personal toxins."

So yeah:  a veg*n diet will be beneficial ... if you ate absolutely horrible things before.  So will Atkins, despite the highly-questionable ingredients in their trademarked products.  So will a low-fat diet, if you go from lots of omega-6 oils to almost none (and can stand the hunger).

To eat OPTIMALLY is going to take a lot of n=1 experimentation.  Eat only things that are "never" toxic or allergenic for a month, then add things back one at a time, slowly.  It's  ILLUMINATING.

bad diet promotes bad diet 2: the chocolate is calling

I think the stress is beginning to taper off.  [sigh of relief]

I am more than ready to normalize my daily activities, and if the gods are merciful i won't be tempted to eat significant quantities of carbs again for a lo-o-o-o-ong time!  It's so surprising how much carb-eating and alcohol-drinking have in common -- they're so enjoyable that it's easy to get started, and once started, one is less motivated to avoid temptation.

The carbs become more and more attractive, too.  Usually when i shop, i view the endless displays of CIAB with absolutely no interest.  Today, i caught the M&Ms singing the sirens' song.  I tied myself to the mast and escaped them, but i find it interesting -- after all, the lure of M&Ms isn't about chocolate as much as it has to do with the sugar.  Fine chocolate one wants to let melt on the tongue, but those little rainbow-tinted seducers invite crunching!

Well, the orgy is over, the last reason to cheat is past.  No more "having" to eat the wrong stuff!  I'll be doing the cooking here till my car is repaired, and then Spense and i will take off for home where it's EASY to be good.  I bought two pounds of grass-fed ground beef today to ease me on my way, and there's a beautiful big pastured chicken in the refrigerator waiting for me to turn it into dinner.  I face the prospect of disciplined eating with joy and relief -- and to think that some people DREAD going on a reducing diet!

conspiracy theory

Restaurants, food manufacturers, producers and grocers want us to eat more.  Grains and other starches make us do this, via a number of pathways, including opioids/addiction, ghrelin stimulation, insulin-induced hypoglycemia, glp-1 and FIAF suppression, ... and more that i'm not feeling anal enough to enumerate right now!  :-)

Saturated fat, accompanying protein, fills us up fast.  The entities listed above don't like that.  (I noticed, on my trip, that restaurant meals are skimpy with good fats; best thing you can do is ask for real butter, and add it to EVERYTHING.)

Advertisers for those entities, furthermore, know that people dread illness, especially the kind that comes from aging and overweight.  They're not above playing on those fears to try to get us to consume massive quantities of their CIAB, as they've convinced the modern world that a LFHC diet is "healthy."

(Have you ever noticed that "sick" people in commercials look like ... people, the sorts of people you see every day on the street?  When they're hawking their cereals or snacks or pharmaceuticals or whatever, the "patients" are now thin, active, happy and attractive specimens of their age-groups?  Real people with COPD or erectile disfunction don't actually look like that -- at least, not in my experience....)

So yeah -- i'm inclined to believe that a lot of businesses KNOW DAMNED WELL that their products are ruinous to health, in individuals and societies, economic and physical.  Some dare not back down for fear of humiliation and litigation, and others are too contemptibly selfish to care about anything but their own bottom-line.  It's nice to subscribe to a belief-system which tells me they won't get away with this kind of behavior forever.

vacation laziness and temptation

I'm staying on the straight-and-narrow -- barely!  :-) 

It's only my second full day here at my daughter's house, and i ate some CIAB*!  <gasp>  Well, it was something i found at the grocery store, and since the ingredient list contained acceptable things, i decided to indulge (this IS a vacation after all...).  Vegetable crisps cooked in palm oil, with a little sea salt.  Not bad, but not luscious enough to be a danger.

We also went out for lunch, where i made up for the fact that i didn't bring along my copper supplements.  A dozen oysters on the halfshell -- YUM --they just give me a glow of content....  I feel a LITTLE guilty about the blackened chicken breast on my mixed-greens salad (dressed with lime juice) -- but not much.  Anything that was in the spice mixture which might have been questionable, was in very small quantity.  In the morning i weigh in again, so the rest of today i'll be "good." 

Tomorrow, i might be kinda bad.  It'll be 28 days, not 30, but i MIGHT be adding something back into my diet.  My daughter and i have a date with "the girls" for sushi (sashimi and seaweed salad for me), and under the circumstances, a glass of white wine may well be unavoidable.  ;-)  Not promising -- not even close to "decided" -- but MAYBE....

Then again, being on-a-roll is not something that i'm willing to sacrifice lightly.  I've long considered it easier to be "perfect" than "moderate."  We'll see.


*CIAB = "crap in a box/bag"