Thanks so much for listening to Mark Sisson and Frederic Patenaude.
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Live Awesome!
Kev
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tech issues: player 2 is only doing the first 54 seconds. player 1 keeps rewinding itself – is anyone else having this problem?
Roni, this is Annmarie
Sounds like your internet connection… try to restart your connection and let us know if it worked!
Much Love!
Hi Annemarie,
could well be the internet connection after all, this IS Costa Rica…but it looked OK. i shut down completely, came back in, and its still doing the same thing – player 1 goes to almost 2 minutes and then starts going IN REVERSE!! how weird is that? all the other nights were fine. going to try once more with the other browser. if not, then tomorrow is another day…
in player 2 now – seems to be working now with the other browser. go figure
.
Yes – Player 1 does the same thing for me. I upgraded flash player and it still doesn’t work so I listen without any problem on player 2
Mine is working fine
PLayer 1 seems to be working for me and I’m 2 minutes in…. I hope it works
Working ok over here
what do you think of the blood type diet?
Blood type diet is completely unproven scientifically, and even as a theory it is kind of weak – I’m a type A+, a vegetarian type that apparently can digest wheat, despite the fact that I developped an autoimmune disorder, in great part due to eating wheat, and to add insult to injury I can’t digest fibery veggies very well but have no problem with meat – the complete opposite of my own blood type.
why would anyone think wheat/grains are edible for some without doing even mild damage based on bloodtype is absurd – birds with their dual-chambered stomachs have evolved to eat grass seeds and don’t get sick from their natural chemical defenses in the same way we don’t get sick from eating a tomato or onion because we evolved to combat their chemical defenses (but get an ant to bite an onion and see what happens to their eyesight).
Unfortunately, while we figured out in the last 6-12,000 years how to grind open the hard shell of grains, we haven’t evolved to deal with their own special blend of toxic chemicals designed to make animals that fully digest them sick. It’s like trying to feed tomatoes or onions to a bird and wondering why it’s not as healthy as all the other birds…
Well, I have not been thriving on a vegetarian or vegan diet … or an omnivore diet! I am really wondering what’s up with that … lol.
I don’t have a Vit D deficiency … I take tons of probiotics. I would love to be someone’s human lab rat!
One point, I totally disagree with Mark’s statement about vegetarians not being able to wait to eat meat again. I found that to be sort of an – oopsy doodle – insulting assertion to make.
Maybe “tons” is too much?
I am almost 78, good health, meat is a major part of my diet & vegetables, low fruits. Not on any perscriptions. Good to hear that I am not alone.
Mark is so wrong about his postulate that humans have never thrived on plant based diet. All of humanity lived entirely on plant foods only for at least 6,000 years. Approx. from 13,000 yrs ago til 7000 yrs ago. They were in MUCH better conditon and health than any human alive today!!
How do you figure that? I’d like to see a source for that one…
to D, the problem with such confusing arguments. Is that people get confused and bing back on junk food. So if you have a diet that work for you. Be happy and explain it. And tolerate other diets.
Such arguments, This kind of Dieatarian argumentation brought me into fast food again. I like people than mark and i also like calm speaking raw foodist.
If can give a clear source of your confusing arguments. It will clear up hopefully.
yes please provide a source for that claim.
also if true,
6,000 years (vegetable diet)
vs
2,000,000 years ( meat diet)
which one should our bodies be more in tune with?
Take a look for the answer from great scientist – Dr.Walter Veith on the Website above.
http://amazingdiscoveries.tv/media/628/Interview-with-Walter-Veith1-med/
I just skimmed that video. Why would anyone listen to this guy? His ideas are no more valid than anyone else’s. If you think this guy has the answers – best of luck to you.
how to you figure humans have been eating meat for 2million years? where are YOUR sources?
Ask any paleoanthropologist they will tell you. Asking for sources on paleolithic meat-eating is like asking for sources on the theory of evolution & natural selection…
I’m of Irish origin, and my family suffers from feochromocytosis (as 1/3 of Irish do) and must avoid high iron foods such as red meat… I hear you discuss the amount of potatoes eaten by the Irish, but how should an Irishman approach a primal or paleo diet?
Mark’s interview was excellent. His website/blog is also excellent. I have run the gamut, from the SAD diet, vegetarian, then raw vegan, even fasted like Frederic for 23 days w/Doug Graham..I’m now back eating some Raw grass fed milk, eggs usually raw but sometimes cooked..My mental and physical health has improved beyond imagining. My hair, nails and teeth are stronger, my demeanor calm and I’ve read and listened to them all (well most)..From what I’ve gleened, fruit was seasonal, even in the tropics..I recently went back fore a while on fruits to try and lose weight. It didn’t happen. Calorically I was eating low, and could not lose My Irish ansc never ate bananas and mangoes..I’m writing this while listening to Fred, and after reading his latest book in full, I have to say, well, the vegan “party line” is falling apart. I’m back to going within and eating what I know “I” need. Eating high fruit or carb, and then “having” to exercise to not gain weight is insane..This Health Debate has really helped me alot. Thanks Kev
See Dr mcdougall’s great video about the starch solution at drmcdougall.com
I think mark makes too many unsubstantiated broad brush statements with nothing to back up.
I love this video!
Genotype/Phenotype discussion is interesting … and makes me wonder. Without knowing this for an individual how can anyone make a broad statement about the anticipated success of any one way of eating? Doesn’t genotype/phenotype aspect make it all just a huge personal experiment?
Something that Frederic said was confusing to me. It was about vegetables and fruits tasting good to us, therefore they are the foods for us to eat. Well my goodness, fruits and vegetables DO taste good … so does roasted chicken … so does rare beef … so does chocolate … so does cheese … so does yogurt … so do Oreos … so do potato chips … so do french fries … so do M&M’s. Whether or not something tastes good has nothing to do with whether it’s the right food for us to eat.
Anyway … another interesting night.
lets not forget Cheetos
Tasting good is to protect the infant. As we mature into adulthood and evolve in consciousness we eat to feel good giving the body what it requires and some foods may not taste good but make us feel healthier.
@ Jensey,
I love your use of “oopsy doodle” in an earlier post. It made me giggle.
I’m wondering if all of those things would taste as good to you after a thorough fast, and without any condiments (sugar added to chocolate, salt added to chicken, a whole list of chemicals added to Oreos, etc…)?
Taste for satiation vs. taste for addiction. What I notice after a fast is that how a food makes me feel physically and mentally is completely integrated with how it tastes.
What I like about Frederick, having followed him outside of these lectures, is that he legitimately is open to new facts. He is ego-less about his stance on nutrition. If something works for you, than keep doing it. I have even read posts by him that suggest we have little real evidence that animal products in caloric quantities of 5% or less in our diet would really do that much harm. For a low fat raw vegan to openly admit that says a lot.
The beauty of what Kevin has done this week is that, if Frederick’s suggestions don’t work for someone, and that person is POSITIVE they are following the suggestions correctly, then there are plenty of other options to subscribe to on the advice buffet.
For me, personally, as a seasonal athlete, musician, former fat kid, someone diagnosed with Tourtte Syndrome, having a father with ALS (for over 10 years!), a diet like Frederick’s seems to improve everything in my life. It is one of the main reasons my dad is still alive, why I no longer experience symptoms of Tourettes, and why I can eat as much as I want, and stay trim, even in the off-season. Though, I’d love to play Ultimate with Mark sometime!
Cheers to Kevin! This week just gets better and better!
Things that are designed by nature to taste good are one thing. Eat a ripe mango or fruit of choice, and it is heavenly. I highly doubt you find raw chicken or beef plain to taste good. You have to add spices that you like, or salt. Oreos and french fries … out of the question. These things were designed in labs to taste good and get people hooked!
Eating meat is learned- it is not instinctive. The analogy of putting a rabbit and an apple in a crib with a child comes to mind.
Put an apple and cooked piece of rabbit in the crib and you have a completely different outcome..
All of the fruits and vegetables we find in supermarkets today have been hybridized and bred for size and sweetness. So the ripe, juicy mango you describe was also designed in a lab to taste good.
An honest comparison would be between game meat and the small, bitter, seed-infested plant foods one can actually find in nature as opposed to the genetically-modified clones you’ll find in Whole Foods.
Which would still taste better than raw meat…
That would depend on the fat content of said meat – too much protein without fat will lead to rabbit starvation/protein poisoning over time as our bodies are made to use amino acids primarily as structural components, not as fuel and also we can’t digest fat soluble vitamins on an all-protein diet.
But fatty meats are delicious and plains indians hunting buffalo always went for the oldest buffaloes who had the most accumulated back fat.
Pretty much all hunter-gatherer tribes favour the fatty sections of meat/internal organs over the lean parts.
Also, a baby has different tastes when it comes to plants than an adult – children are highly sensitive to sweetness but can’t tolerate bitter tastes very well, this is because pretty much all plant chemical toxins/natural pesticide defenses against being eaten will tase bitter, and fruits that want to be eaten will taste sweet on purpose. So until the child learns by their parents what’s good to eat and what isn’t he can only go by taste alone.
It’s a shame manufacturers have exploited the ultra-sweet fructose from fruits and made modern fruits with even more fructose as well as modern pastries/junk food with added fructose, as fructose can only be tolerated in small amounts and is quite toxic in high quantities – your live absorbs and detoxifies all the fructose it can in a similar fashion to alcool detoxification (See/google pediatric doctor Lustig’s video presentation – Sugar: The Bitter Truth) – but while it’s doing this it can’t do other things like convert excess glucose to fat for storage, which leads to your pancreas making more and more insulin thinking that will get the liver to listen – but this along with high carb/glucose intake puts your liver and other cells at risk for insulin resistance (because elevated fructose and glucose i.e. dietary carbohydrates, in the blood is toxic and contributes to premature aging with oxidative damage and A.G.E.s. and therefore your pancreas MUST deal with it, and unlike proteins it doesn’t release glucagon in equal numbers as insulin but sometimes massive amounts of insulin only which promotes fat storage, sodium retention and atherosclerosis amongst other things… but I digress…
This is ALLLLLLL Sooooooo confusing….Don’t know what to to believe!!!!!!! I’ll figure it out on my own!
I will stand with Dr. Mercola, we are not all the same!!! Can’t be dogmatic. Listen to your own body.
I hardly think the raw vegan “party” is galling apart…
So when will Sally Fallon speak? And what happened to T. Collin Campbel? I was really looking forward to hearing both of them speak. Does the fact that you are “summarizing things” tomorrow mean that we will not get to hear from these two most important people?
=((
I recently switch to adding more fats from avocados to my 2 quarts of green smoothies and feel more satisfied and not as much up and down and yawning in the middle of the day as when I had just fruit, greens and superfoods powders (maca, bee pollen, gogi berries, spirulina). I’m thinking that maybe more fats in the diet during the winter might make sense and more fruit in the warmer season or at least balancing it all out to the level of exercise one is getting during the day.
what a completely awesome friday night.. thank you kevin.. loved mark’s imput
oop and love the commentary too;)
Hmmmmm, I wonder if grass-fed meat results in less stinky odours in the bathroom? Seems to me that all regular meats result in rather unpleasant odours once you get to that level, which to my mind begs the question, How can meat be ideal human food?
And for that matter, how can cereal (in commercial pet food) be ideal pet food when it results in such stinky sloppy pet stools? Feed the pets raw meat and suddenly the stink disappears…. seems to speak for itself in my book.
actually the gas comes from fermentation. meat gets digested by the acids in our stomach almost completely. vegetables, grains and legumes do not. we use bacteria in our guts to digest the three (same process as in cows) then we absorb the bacterial byproducts of that fermentation. what the bacteria cant digest is called fiber. that is why beans, for example give people lots of gas.
I can’t ubderstand why meat is blamed for smelly poohs!
Are you serious? Meat rots in your stomach, that’s why you have smelly poo. Our intestinal tracts are long, unlike a meat eater (say a lion’s) are very short. They are meant to get that meat in and out in a very short time. We cannot do this. So the meat sits in your intestines and ferments/rots. Not too pretty if you ask me. At least eating a plant based diet my poop doesn’t run people out of the house.
tell you what, eat a steak and some corn then take a look at what comes out relatively intact on the other side.
The “meat rots in your stomach” myth is exactly that, a myth.
Meat and veggie material are both digested differently- meat by enzymes that your body makes and veggie material by bacteria in your gut because we are omnivores and are able to derive nutrition from both.
Patrina,
I was on 100% raw veg diet for 6 months and the odour in the bathroom was just as bad, if not worse than when some flesh is consumed.
If you have fat malabsorption issues or your gallbladder can’t produce enough bile salts you’ll get stinky poo from undigested fats.
If you always have this even after slowly increasing fat intake you might have a medical condition – get a reputable brand of OTC digestive enzymes (lipase enzymes counted by LIP units) or get a Rx for one.
Weak bile salt production, lipase enzyme production and hydrochloridric acid production are symptoms of going years on a low-fat diet (low HCl is from going on a low-fat vegan diet), and can (usually) be reversed
Mark, can the paleo diet be done with nuts,seeds,sprouted legumes,soy and mostly green vegetables with B12 and other supplements.
I do a high fat, moderate protein, low grain vegan diet and I feel *great*. I sort of consider myself ‘primal vegan’, haha/
im not mark but i suppose, but its not really paleo with out meat. however soy is a big no no in the paleo circles due to its toxicity.
here is a start:
http://www.litalee.com/shopexd.asp?id=188
I have to agree with some of the comments… sometimes to much information leaves one more confused then ever. There appears to be just as much supporting evidence for a topic as there is non supporting evidence.
With that being said…the Soy references worries me…anyone else have a response to the above? I only consume soy perhaps once every 1 – 2 weeks.
I hate to say it, but yes, soy is really that bad – just look at this study:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/2/242
The reason why is because we homo sapiens haven’t adapted to soy legume’s natural chemical defenses (same deal with grass seed grains) and so their toxins can mess us up much more than say, the toxins found in turnips. Remember, plants, especially their seed offspring, really don’t want you or other predators/pests to kill them so they have evolved chemical pesticides to either kill you or make your life miserable. We, however, really do want to eat plants to we can live so we evolved counter-measures, but only to plants we’ve been eating for hundreds of thousands of years.
Soy consumption worldwide was almost non-existant 60 years ago (except in small amounts as traditionally prepared condiments, and only in large amounts in cases of famine in asian cultures). Farmers grew nitrogen-fixing soybeans to fertilize crops, then they figured out how to chemically neutralize most (obviously not all) of its toxins and created tofu. Then they got the bright idea of setting a small portion of each soy grower’s income aside to hire a PR firm to market tofu to consumers (especially the budding vegan movement of the time) and push studies focusing solely on the benefits of soy.
Substitute soy for nuts or avocadoes.
I consider myself a veganarcho-primitivist. Read numerous articles saying early humans only ate meat for the same reasons we do now: it tastes good cooked and seasoned!
The Great Health Debate is going on in a lot of minds due to this very generous and timely arrangement. Two more wonderfully articulate speakers! Of course some of us are on info overload by now and will have to get the CD and transcripts to sort it out! Fighting the urge to go eat junk! lol as Frederic says we do when there are too many choices.
I am so torn on these different diet forms having tried Mark’s way with great success and yet am curious to try Frederics outline even though I know I don’t handle carbs well… I have sustained kidney damage due to bacterial peritonitis and am having difficulty with meats, though the cleansing green drinks and celery seed tea are making it easier
If you have any issues with bacterial infections stay away from carbs especially non-starchy ones as these cripple your neutrophils’ ability to kill bacteria. It takes hours after eating carbs for their killing potential to be restored. They account for 70% of your total immune system. If you’re going to eat carbs, only eat once per day, and eat starches as they don’t depress your immune system as much as refined sugars (fasting and eating 1x/day in a small window in itself is very healthy for other reasons such as allowing your cells to get rid of their junk/damaged proteins and allowing your body to focus on other, non-digestion related functions like scavenging for cancers and making a little bit more neurons with Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, etc…)
Also, make sure you are not suffering from hyperinsulinaemia – chronically elevated insulin as this tells your kidneys to hold onto sodium salt, thus increasing blood pressure. If you are diabetic or are overweight/have a high fat % and can’t seem to lose weight no matter how little you eat, you likely have elevated insulin levels in your blood. If you do you will have to go on a very low carb (and adequate protein and high fat) diet and avoid fructose (only if you think high blood pressure will damage your kidneys even more, which they probably will)
Difficulty with meats: Do you eat too many protein-filled lean cuts of meat? Are you allergic to amines in aged meats? Do you have fat malabsorption issues?
mark says vegetarians don’t get enough fats ?? what does he consider coconut, avocado and nuts?
how does he determine which animal proteins are beneficial and which aren’t?
he makes quite a number of assumptions without documenting himself, but overall has a sane approach – but in this world with so much contaminated animal products – is it really healthy.?
I really enjoyed what Frederick had to say, but I would have liked to hear his response to the argument that many people have difficulty converting plant based fatty acids into DHA omega fatty acids.
I’m surprised by how well received Mark has been. His bedside manner is quite charming but really . . . where’s the science? He speaks almost exclusively in personal statements and the rest is ‘friend-of-mine’ type anecdotes! No references to research, no clinical data or experience. I actually believe in (and follow) a low carb/no grain diet, but as a persuasive lecturer – I was unimpressed.
Robb Wolf is better if you want a clinical/scientific perspective. His podcasts are great (and his book is great, too!)
I think Mark tries not to bog down his talks with too much science-speak to make them more accessible (although I like the geeky stuff personally;)His articles tend to have a decent amount of references and he does his research, though (and the people on his forums are serious science hacks!)
Nora Gedgaudas is great for really clinical stuff. She’s not as well known in the primal/paleo world, but she’s a functional endocrinology clinician and a neurofeedback practitioner and she has great info on diet and the brain.
if you are interested in the research check out the book. its in there.
People will believe what they want to if it fits their mindset. And, people will believe what their bodies tell them. One can quote science all day, and then another will come along and quote science that is in opposition to that. It all seems entirely subjective to me.
As someone who was raw vegan (and lost so much muscle despite high hemp, greens and seed intake)I went primal and saw my lost muscle come back very fast (and I was also able to build muscle better than I ever could in my 16 years of vegetarian eating).
I have come to realize that my body doesn’t efficiently utilize plant proteins like it does animal proteins. I used to think the whole “high quality protein” thing was a myth- now I sure don’t!
Mark is right-on about the sunburn thing. After going primal and consuming more saturated fat and less omega 6, my fair, freckly skin gets much more tan than I thought was even possible and I don’t burn nearly as quickly!
I also have seen the resolution of a lot of health issues that didn’t improve on a raw vegan diet- hormonal, skin, energy, brain function, digestive function. I’m really grateful:-)
FYI, Mark doesn’t preach no/very low carb (and Frederic doesn’t understand ketosis and brain function at all). The brain does just fine on lower and even low carb diets, whereas sugars glycate brain cells (esp. temporal lobe cells) and this is very serious.
Most people eating primal diets are eating anywhere from 50-150 gms of carbs/day, which is plenty. It’s not very low carb/ketogenic unless you aim for that.
And it’s not hard to follow. It’s much easier for me because I’m no longer hypoglycemic and I can go for 6 hours without eating and not feel shaky. It’s also easier from a mood standpoint- people tend to feel more even-keel and less anxious because they’re not triggering their sympathetic nervous system constantly due to blood sugar fluctuations.
Frederic just doesn’t understand what people on lower carb diets eat if he thinks that no one claiming to eat this way actually does (I have been for nearly 2 years and when I track my macronutrient intake, my total carb intake, including fiber, is usually under 75gms/day and about 60%+ fat. My carb% naturally falls right around 12-15% and this is with veggies and some berries.) I’m not carb-phobic, though- I just eat within the range that I have no blood sugar symptoms or weight gain. I still eat fruit and starchy veggies:-)
The reason I ended up on a primal/paleo diet is because I started having dreams telling and showing me what to eat. I was hesitant at first (I didn’t like the idea of eating meat again after so many years veg.) but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted with what I was doing. My body spoke very loudly to me through those dreams and I’m glad I listened! It has transformed how I feel and look.
Even my energy field has transformed (I’ve had spiritually sensitive people tell me it was so much stronger and ask what was different in my life!)
I feel like I’m finally beginning to thrive!
Thanks for sharing your story Erin. You listened to your body and your body responded!
What I have learned after studying nutrition intensely over the last several years – more so than the 40 years I spent in nursing – is that there is no one right diet for everyone. So for that reason Jonny Bowden’s message has resonated most with me, as well as Donna Gates, Daniel VitalisJ.E. Williams, & Dr. Mercola.
I tried going vegetarian and I was hungry all the time. I couldn’t eat enough vegetables/fruits to feel satiety. Very unsatisfying. My uncle was a farmer and I grew up drinking some raw milk and eating a balance of farm fresh meat, potatoes and vegetables. Unfortunately with a generous helping of dessert with every meal. Then I lived on processed food for most of my adult life. Finally I’m back to a balance and choose local pastured meat, milk and produce and I feel much better. Saturated fats like lard, butter, coconut oil agree with me. Vegetable oils and margarines give me indigestion. Mostly meat or fish and vegetables with a little lentils, fruit, seeds, and nuts. That’s the diet that I feel best with.
Frederick said that insulin is the master hormone. I just finished reading “Primal Body Primal Mind” by Nora Gedgaudas and heard her lectures at the Weston Price conference. There I learned that the “new” science reveals that leptin rules all the hormones, that all the body organs prefer burning fat as fuel because it is steady (not the ups and downs you get with glucose and insulin response), that the only system that requires glucose is the red blood cells (but the body can make glucose from protein or fat as needed. The reason it seems we need glucose is that the body has adapted to our high glycemic loads and our fat burning mechanisms are “rusty” as a result. It all sounded very reasonable to me considering my own experience.
regarding leptin: you do realize that it’s very difficult (but not impossible) to become leptin resistant without the presence of insulin resistance, right?
You’d have to eat a ton of fructose, lectins & eat like, 10 meals/day… and have bad genes?
kevin!!??? why is people so frivolous pertaining to diet. diet should be based on your genetical pre disposition, race and biochemical makeup its that simple. why none of the health experts talked about this simple modality? kevin why didnt you saked this question? the polar bear in alaska thrived on meat and animal flesh, the gorrilla in africa thrives on vegatables and fruits who lives longer? the gorrilla! 100% always! we cant say eat what our anscesters ate because this isnt specific or adequate everyones ancesters are different.God placed africans in africa (hot climate) and there diet based mostly raw and vegan. God placed the caucasians in the north (cold climate) and there diet were animal flesh based.every race/culture ate a different diet pertaining to where they were originated. its just facts and im not a racist! plain n simple people should eat according to your genetical pre disposition that resonates with your biochemistry. if u feed the gorrila in africa meat it would die n if u feed the polar bear in alaska vegatables it will perish! one mans food is another mans poison! generally colored people are originally vegetarians and caucasions are originally meat eaters this is a fact! look at your history and research this!
uhhh…. where to start.
paleo/ primal is ALL based on genetics and biochemical make up.
which in turn is of course based on the migration theory that life EVOLVED out of africa, migrating to europe and beyond.
I dont see how paleo/ primal would make sense to a creationist.
and before we get all upidy that a “theory” is just someones guess let me stop you right there.
a THESIS is someones guess, which is then researched and defended by facts.
once a THESIS has been defended from scrutiny from other scientist then it becomes a THEORY, which is BACKED BY FACTS. This THEORY is always under review when new FACTS become discovered to be amended or replaced with a more accurate THEORY based on NEW FACTS.
lol sorry.. im doing an english paper while i write this.
change out thesis for hypothesis
I don’t agree with Mark Sisson’s point of view….
Mark’s talk was great. Also Mark looks fantastic unlike Scrawny Frederick. Vegans, raw foodists seem to waste away unless they are doing lots of exercises that provide stimulus for muscle growth. Even Doug Graham is looking a bit worse for wear.
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com
Secondly, find me on facebook, my name is George Niculescu, look at some of my pictures. I’ve been Vegan for 4 years and raw foodist for 2 (with fruits as staple). I’m far from scrawny, working out only 2-3 times per week. Diet is not to blame for scrawniness, the individual’s choices within a said diet is.
I agree. Although the high meat eaters are not aging well, and most are more mucousy when they speak. There is something about their eyes and skin that is off putting too. Almost like you can see the death of animals in their eyes lol. Gary taubes looks like death.
Really? I kinda think Taubes looks good. Mark looks good, too, but I do think that Robb Wolf looks a little off. You can’t deny that dude is fit and healthy, though.
Sally Fallon probably looks the worst, though…
Mark looks great, esp. for someone who was an endurance athlete- they tend to age poorly (Doug Graham is a case in point).
Nora Gedgaudas, who’s almost 50, looks esp. great. So do Kurt Harris and Dr. Michael Eades (none of them sound “mucousy”- I think that’s more the WAP people with their sourdough/dairy diets!)
Sally might not be in good shape, but her skin sure is nice!
I think the issue with a lot of the Weston Price folks is that they’re still stuck on the fermented grain thing, which, for most of us, is just not healthy. They’re also eating all their saturated fats with all their carby grains- bad combo form a metabolic standpoint!
Most people have the gene which predisposes them to some degree of gluten intolerance.
Graham has aged more than anyone on the planet this past 10 years ; )
I think the paleo dudes have great bodies, I just think many of them don’t exude vibrant health.
It’s not like I’m saying all meat eaters look bad. You look great yourself Erin. Your one of the reasons I tried low carb in the first place because you look healthy! And I agree Nora looks great. Maybe because she doesn’t eat high amounts of meat, whereas Mark, Robb and Art devany are like meat champions lol.
The mucous thing is just something I’ve noticed. It may be the dairy drinkers mainly. Taubes can’t get through an interview without clearing his throat a hundred times. Robb Wolf doesn’t have that problem.
Agreed.
By “agreed” I meant to say I agree with what Erin said
When I was doing 80/10/10 I was always a little weary of how Doug Graham had aged. And when I was vegan, in general, I was always wary of the bags under the eyes of vegan leaders/vegans. Even if they looked healthy otherwise, there was always something with the eyes. I was no exception.
I never tried a WAPF style diet, because I knew that grains just didn’t work for me. Or for most people. I know that Sally Fallon promotes raw milk consumption pretty heavily too, which is rather carby. Still, WAPF do good things, and a lot of people transition from WAPF style eating to primal/paleo, so it’s a good starting point.
I think I sounded a little anti-meat in my post. I’m not at all, I eat animal products whenever my body calls for them, I’ve only been straight vegan for like 11 days cause I haven’t had any cravings.
I do think Taubes looks like hell though. I look for bags under the eyes, wrinkles, skin tone. The vegan speakers aren’t exactly doin it for me either lol. I may be too judgmental ; ) It’s like I expect them to all look 20 years old when they are 80.
Don’t forget AGEs caused by overconsumption of carbs (esp. fructose) & polyunsaturated fatty acids esp. the pro-inflammatory Omega-6 PUFAs
I wonder if not enough fat, too much protein plays a role – or perhaps some of the people you mention have undiagnosed chemical food insensitivites (i.e. from oxalates in plants, salicylates in plants/artificial colours/drugs & hygiene products, amines in aged meats, or glutamates in plants & MSG additives) or some other undiagnosed allergy
Kevin – thank you SO much for all these great speakers with certainly different opinions.
I noticed that most of the speakers promoted a high micro nutrient diet with an emphasis on raw vegan. These speakers had the most studies and results from their years of experience.
Mark Sisson and Dr Mercola seemed the most “opinionated” rather than informed. The idea that one can’t get a totally healthy nutrient rich diet on a vegan diet is certainly rubbish! And most of the speakers validated this.
I notice that most people who don’t aren’t paying a great deal of attention to the important needs…like omega’s, proteins, minerals etc. It isn’t easy….but the more you do it the easier it gets. I have been an 80% raw food vegan for years…low carbs, low protein, loads of greens, chlorophyll, lots of nuts, seeds, probiotics, low sugar….and have never felt better! I guarantee if all these people who said they didn’t do well on a vegan diet weren’t doing it right!
Thanks again….loved it all. Will stick to my delicious raw vegan high nutrient way of eating for the rest of my life!
Aloha from Hawaii!
As a vegan you are eating nothing but carbs, so how is that low carb?
That hardly makes sense. Obviously it’s not as dramatically low carb as a primal diet, which is a good thing in my opinion because our red blood cells need glucose.
With lots of vegetables, plant fats, and low sugar fruits, it’s easy to get under 100 grams of carbs in a day.
if that is true, and carbs having 4 calories per gram, these people will be eating 400 calories a day.
what is a healthy intake of carbs from a vegan perspective?
how many grams of fat do vegans aim to consume? if we look at plants, they dont have a lot of fat so that cant be a major source of energy for them. carbs are their major source of energy.
Say what? Plants are not 100% carbohydrates. If someone is eating a wide variety of nuts and seeds, avocados, coconuts, olives, leafy greens, low sugar fruits like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, berries, high protein foods like spirulina, chlorella, seaweeds etc, they will be eating a nearly 70% fat diet and can stay under 100 grams of carbs if they want to.
I feel best eating like this (for now) It’s pretty low carb by vegan standards. I’ve tried high fruit diets and had no energy. Some people thrive on lots of fruit though so we all just gotta do what makes us feel good.
Two words: gluconeogenesis. Okay, that’s just one word but it sort of sounds like at least two, doesn’t it?
Keep on living Selina… What I drew from even the vegan speakers is that years down the pike you will have issues to deal with, as do everyone as they age. But vegan done “right” takes as much work and science as anything I have ever done and honestly when I was following the paleo form of diet I was in better health in every way with less conscious thought spent on dieting. Moods were better, more time spent on life’s joys and I trimmed to a great weight. That said I became a gardener and started to include lots of high quality veggies and almost thought my life was perfect when I was hit with a worst case west nile virus(from tropical mosquitoes). I ended up with kidney damage not from meat protein but the result of medical care gone wrong. So now I “must” eat more veggies and appreciate the new science (raw foods-yea!)that can help me do that safely.
As a caring human being I became conscious of the care of all animals especially farm animals in the factory type meat producing buisinesses. Horrific treatment of animals is morally wrong not to mention the quality of meat produce so inferior and unhealthy. Vote with your dollars! support small farm, organic no drug animal care! Avoid processed foods in every way.
So many think (especially vegans) that getting rid of animals on farms will help the planet… You have not heard all the information and need to consider the video of Allan Savory on using high density animals to repair the earth and sequester carbon by earth healing. And the up side is that these lovely animals have joy and are a joy to see in a beautiful bucolic farm scene. (http://vimeo.com/8239427)
So often the desire to protect animals from an end use is based on the horrific care we see them get in their daily care and from our own abused mental state in this world situation.
Geralyn, Thank you for your beautiful comment. I think while vegans argue with meat-eaters, the devastation to the planet continues full force. I would like us to join forces to rid ourselves of factory farming (plants and animals.) To keep us fighting would be an agenda of supporters of Dr. Campbell’s weak theories. It seems it happens throughout history (Pasteur, Ancel Keys, with subsequent marketing of antibiotics/germ theory and statins, respectively.)
Kevin: A million thanks for this great debate.
Sisson and Mercola are certainly very well informed. It’s hard to do raw vegan why waste your time looking for supplements when it’s all there for you in whole foods. So if you don’t thrive on vegan you are not doing it correctly but health shouldn’t be that difficult. I am happy when I see vegans becoming ex-vegans. It shows they are finally listening to their body and choosing health.
That negativity is poison, Sue.
Oranges are super high in calcium, if you eat just 10 you would be over 60% of your R.D.I
Just had a question for Frederick Palenaude about the idea of fruit sugar-decreasing immune system function, as Gabriel Cousens says, “turns of the longevity genes.”
hey fil like i said the gorrilla in africa eats plants and the polar bear in alaska eats animal flesh. diet is simple eat from your kind, we are all humans but we require different foods. On a rudimentary scale, we must eat according to our kind (phylum) and not simply our species.
The species of birds do not only eat seeds. You must break that species down by its phylum. One phylum of birds (which includes parrot keet, hummingbird, canaries, and blue jays) are vegetarian. They eat seeds! Then another phylum of birds (which includes vultures, eagles, hawks, and buzzards) eats MEAT (FLESH)! They eat blood! They are predators!
If you feed the birds who are vegetarian, animal flesh, they will die. If you feed the predatory birds, seeds or vegetarian matter, they will die. They are all birds and members of the bird species, but they are broken down into tribes, classes, or phylum. This is present in Nature and is Natural law! All species knows it and respects it, except for human beings!
Human beings are so lost that in the Bible human beings are told to learn from the animals – the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea (Book of Job, Chapter 12).
if you feed Africans animal flesh they wont die and if you feed Caucasians raw vegan food they wont die either. so how does that work?
BTW all human, including Africans and Caucasians are from the same
domain: Eukaryota <–general classification
kingdom: Animilia
phylum: Chordata <—-there it is, phylum
class: Mammalia
order: Primates
family: Hominidae
genus: Homo
species:Sapien <—-specific classification
also, did you know that birds and humans are in the same phylum?
KEVIN,
I AM ENJOYING THE CALLS. LOTS TO LEARN & CONSIDER. YOU HAVE HAD TERRIFIC PEOPLE ON THE CALLS ALSO. I HAVE ONE REQUEST THOUGH. PLEASE USE DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGY NEXT TIME. I AM USING DIAL-UP INTERNET & THE THING THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BUFFER UP IS NOT BUFFERING. I TAKES A LOAD OF PATIENCE & DETERMINATION TO KEEP PRESSING THE ARROW. A ONE HOUR CALL TAKE 2 1/2 HOURS. PLEASE HELP! THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO.
Hi Kevin,
This is my wrap up for you… hope you read this… the good the bad and the ugly… oh! first let me congratulate you for even attempting this since i realize the difficulties… which i express next… thanks for your efforts…
Where i’m coming from… I do subscribe to the principle that each of us( 7billion ) has a unique POV… sort of like no two snow flakes are alike… and actually each of us lives in a unique world of ones own creation… a unique own-mind-created-world of thoughts-ego-intellect and wisdom or lack of… if you will… although this is one aspect( diversity ) of the nature of things, obviously this a huge communication problem and creates much stress for everyone… friend and foe alike… in all of this diversity and confusion, we need to keep our sanity and hopefully some wisdom…
the other aspect of the nature of things is … is to see the oneness of all… but this is only possible if… we become completely free of all conditioning of the mind( actually all knowledge good bad ugly is surrendered… at least for a moment ) and awaken to our true nature as awareness-love-peace… this is rare, but some of us are working on this primarily… and nutrition is just an aid, secondarily… but for most of us, this means keeping the eye on the bigger picture… it may be better to be not so healthy, not so wealthy, but rather to follow the silence & wisdom of ones heart… which will determine our next life and our spirituality…
reference: http://www.mooji.com & http://www.globalonenessproject.org/interviewee/llewellyn-vaughan-lee
meanwhile we do the best we can with common sense wisdom and what i call honest science… now back on track to nutritional knowledge…
So, the following is just my 2cents POV, from my 40 years of veganism( allergic to dairy) with a little of vegetarianism( six months in India )… and a little very very little fish now an then… my first 31 years of life I was a meat eater…
my father, a heavy meat eater, overweight and in serious trouble, became a vegan at age 55, lost 70 lbs and extended his life by about 10 to 20 years, passing away at 82… he did not have the best nutritional knowledge like Dr Fuhrman’s book “Eat To Live” but it still helped him a lot… reversing diabetes etc…
but for me, longevity is not the issue… quality of life… especially spiritual quality… what we do for others without any selfishness and rewards… is
from my POV, someone like Peace Pilgrim who commits totally to fifteen years of helping others without any selfishness and rewards is worth a lot more than a selfish life of 100 years… example: http://www.peacepilgrim.org
The GOOD as far as nutritional knowledge is concerned… are the honest and credible scientists of nutrition… who have demonstrated in their own lives and the thousands of common people they helped… these are Dr Joel Fuhrman… Dr Alan Goldhamer… Dr. T. Colin Campbell… perhaps others that i missed…
the common point of view here is that it’s the micro-nutrients found in plants and fruits, especially lots of greens, that are needed at this time of extreme pollution and toxins in the father sky, mother earth, sister waters, and innocent brother animals…
and we know which are the healthy fats and where to get them… avocados, seeds like ground flax, chia, hemp, etc, and nuts like walnuts etc… not too much is needed… but depends whether you are an athlete, construction worker, or meditating in a Himalayan cave… or sitting in an office all day with a laptop… only if extra carbs are needed, there are the starchy root veggies and some select whole grains… but only if your digestion can handle these… and does not lead to unnecessary extra lbs…
quality proteins? all foods mentioned so far, rich in micro-nutrients and healthy fats have the appropriate quality proteins proportioned by mother nature…
of course, every individual must customize even with the best of dietary protocol by Dr Fuhrman or others… according to ones ability to digest etc… and tests for nutritional deficiencies can be taken if one is not thriving for whatever reason… and corrected via simple supplements…
in addition to a high-micro-nutrients plant based diet and healthy fats, there are powerful healing modalities that are very much underutilized in our culture… these are water fasting( which i have done ) and green juice fasting( which i will do shortly)… meanwhile just recently i added green juicing to my Eat-To-Live diet…
references:
“The Pleasure Trap” Godlhamer
“Eat to Live” Fuhrman
“Mucusless Diet Healing System” Arnold Ehret which was a great way for me to get started 40 years ago and contains intro to nutrition-spirituality-vitalForce connection
http://www.healthpromoting.com/
The BAD as far as nutritional knowledge is concerned… includes super-athletes, super-driven, super-egos, super-adventurers who hypnotise us with their mystical stories( which even i enjoy )… and they want to sell exotic expensive super-foods super-supplements…
what can these teach us… us the common people… who want to live simple but valued lives with ethics… and love for all, for everything, especially all the innocent animals…
the past is gone… romanticizing about it will not recapture it… creation is ever flowing… a new… never repeating exactly… should i take a gun and shot the deer that come into my back yard?
look into their eyes and be still… be still and know that all is god… in that stillness there is formless oneness… inexpressible… that is our true nature… not this body, healthy or unhealthy, and the noisy confused mind… ever grasping for knowledge and self interest… not restrain destroying others in one way or another…
only a clear mind free from the past can be an effective instrument for infinite intelligence to act creatively in the here-and-now circumstances… which are completely different from the past…
The Ugly as far as nutritional knowledge is concerned… these are those who use fuzzy logic and pseudo-science reminiscent of the tobacco industry who corralled enough scientists and medical doctors who were smoking heavily themselves due to the great stress involved dealing with disease care… a psychiatrist, only chosen by my mother because he spoke her language, had to cancel an appointment as he succumbed to the ten pack per day…
now we hear stories that cancer can be cured my eating meat… totally in contradiction to the current medical science and common sense… i have talked to several cancer survivors after surgery, radiation, chemotherapy who were told nothing by their doctors about staying way from meat…
to eat our brother-sister animals is cannibalism because we have to kill them… and their flesh is similar to ours…
plants, fruits, nuts, seeds live for a season and when ripe fall to the ground ready to reincarnate… regardless if we eat them or not… that’s why everyone should have a garden… which is possible if we restructured our society away from greed and mindless egoic ambitions…
those who feel animal flesh is necessary for sustenance will not restrain themselves from eating human flesh during hard times… as has happened to some degree in famines and other distressed situations…
but, Jesus and others have showed us that the body-life is not that important… but the spirit is… in previous life Buddha willingly intentionally sacrificed his body to feed a wounded lioness with cubs to save her life… who next life became Buddha’s main disciples…
do not be deceived by the adventurous lives of a few…
the human body and mind are a great miracle and some are born, for whatever reason, with strong constitutions & much vital energy… so their bodies can withstand much abuse and harsh environments… in the end proving nothing… their teachings are usually misguided… success in this life is due to our efforts only secondarily, primarily it is due to past karma, not genetics, not blood types, etc… therefore beware of successful people selling you their knowledge for a price… it just adds to their success not yours…
therefore our effort( great effort ) in this life must be to go within and rest in the silence of the heart which is free from fear and confusion… surrender to your inner nature which is love, wisdom, peace, compassion, fearlessness, sharing and caring freely… not for a price…
you are not the body-mind-thoughts-ego-intellect
you are the formless-spacious-peaceful-loving-awareness in which all this drama of good bad ugly is unfolding…
let us all try to embrace all with love… not easy but we can try… and try… and try… until it becomes effortless…
thank you for reading… if you persevered this far…
God Bless everyone… those i praised and those i blamed,
Anatol
devotee of “pray and serve” http://www.amma.org
correction:
http://www.mooji.org not .com
Wow. You should get more.
forgot to include :
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com
DVD should be available in April
this is a beautiful current documentary of an amazing therapeutic healing modality available to everyone who wants to make a little effort and possibly become free from “incurable” diseases and free from meds
and you do not have to be overweight to start of with; one lady, not overweight, got results in ten days; then continued to green juice along with a reasonable vegan diet
documentary movie is entertaining, funny, sad, informative, tear jerking, and very inspiring
see if this can work for you or maybe some friend
thanks… enjoy!
Does anyone know, why eating high fat, even good fat, diet causes bad body odour. I do not mean bad breath , just bad body odour, stinky armpits. And when I eat low fat high carb diet I dont need to wash or shower even for over a week.
What is in fats that give that stinking body odour?
Does fats changes our body bacteria or other processes involved?
haven’t noticed that at all.
Allergic reaction?
One thing that is overlooked in all these discussions is that the norm doesn´t have to be a body full of muscles and life packed with performance. Being vegan just puts you in a higher vibration, more etherical and comes with a whole new set of rules as what to life is all about. Not saying the meat eaters don´t know or feel what life is all about, they do but in a different way. The problem also arises when vegans claim that you can build tons of muscle on vegan diet, you can´t and why should you. Let things be what they are and don´t worry so much. We all end up in the grave sooner or later.
very good point Luis !
I must say that mister Mark Sisson is a complicated ignorant, to many miles from reality,and I know his theory is revolting,Sorry but I cannot beat around the bush with blood sucking vultures.
looking at the bigger picture… our best chance of preserving human species is
“Be Veg… Go Green… Save the Planet…”
references: includes top scientists from around the world
http://www.worldpreservationfoundation.org/events.php
also check out website that is devoted to “be veg, go green, save the planet”
http://suprememastertv.com/
thanks
It is truth that many vegetarians crave meat,and it is normal,because meat is adictive,and this is why canibals could not stop eating humans.
I would love to get a gorilas opinion on what Mark says,but I say that humans have not evoluted, but degenerated to tones of desease,wich derived mainly from cooked foods and specially meat,and I presume that Mark is not ofended if I indirectly refered to him as blood sucking vulture,since he stated that we humans were vultures ones upon the time, I must say I find it ridiculous.
Meat eating atlets may last a little longer than other meat eaters by developing colateral circulation, but when you ad up the time they spend running, they may ended up living less then the no atlets.
Does a pussy cat run 10 or 15 miles every day to keep their muscles strong? By the way I have had a cat that loved vegies and looked heathy on it, and I have a dog ones,that lasted 25 years on avegetarian diet, and years ago a lady on Australia gold coast,said the same about her dog,and they even got the real meat eaters tooth! Interesting mistery for meat eaters to analise.
Ya Kev, why didn’t you have a gorilla on to debate?!
why do you feel the need to use derogatory terms?
i would much prefer to see sources for your facts.
hi manuel,
here’s an interesting video of
Lioness Adopts a young Calf,The Heart of a Lioness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD5bCNvAihU
i have heard of vegetarian lions; of course there may also be a lot of spoofs on this; but i do believe some of the stories are genuine
i appreciate you comments
but slight disagreement about vegetarians craving meat
i have been a Vegan for 40 years and do not crave meat ever; once in a while maybe an average of once per year i will have some sardines or salmon
my wife is repulsed by all animal food and will not touch it
i agree with you that Mark Sisson is out to lunch using what i call fuzzy logic and pseudo-science
thanks for posting
Pautenade seems to be confused about low-carb, primarily Mark’s Primal approach… Did anyone else notice when he was like (paraphrasing) “I’d like to see where he gets his calories from, seeing as a smal portion of meat and vegetables wouldn’t be over 1000 calories. I think he eats more carbs than he lets on”. Umm… dude, FAT? That’s Mark’s thing – fat. The calories come from fat. Yeesh. Do some research into your opponent, dude…
Good point Sara. I noticed that too.
Some of what Mark Sisson had to say seemed ignorant or misinformed to me. For example, he said that there where no high quality plant based sources of protein. Well that simply isn’t true. Quinoa for example is a complete protein and is a high quality source that is easily assimilated by the body. Hemp is also another high quality source. After several years experimenting w/raw veganism, I do agree with presenters who have said that some animal products may appropriate for some people. So, I am now back to vegetarianism. But, Sisson’s encouragement to people to include high amounts of saturated fat in their diets…just seems downright irresponsible to me. I guess you can find extremists on both ends of the food spectrum. 1 person swears that we will absolutely thrive on fruit (alone), another..on strictly sprouts, while another swears that porterhouse steaks are the way to go. I’ve even heard one “expert” on another program espouse being a “breathatarian”. What’s worse is the fundamentalist, philosophical dogma that drives adherents to each particular lifestyle. So unproductive. At the end of the day, I feel that people intuitively know what they need to be eating to be healthy…at least basic stuff anyway. It ain’t rocket science. Donuts and ice cream—no. Fruits and Vegetables yes. Whether you include seeds, nuts, grains, sprouts, dairy, fish, poultry or red meat…I think comes down to what you determine your body needs. I am tired of the soapboxes…but do appreciate Kevin for organizing the debate.
Here’s the problem with you can eat whatever you want. It’s your choice. No matter what you eat, you’ll probably live to 50 or 60 or 70 and you can sit on the couch and be happy. Choice is fine as long as it affects only you. This choice does not affect just you. When you become unhealthy and obese, pretty soon you can’t breath if you walk a few steps. It’s too exhausting to think about getting up and doing anything for yourself. If your spouse is healthy, they end up having to wait on you. Eventually you become bed ridden and are so heavy that you spouse is unable to care for you. Once you are institutionalized, it takes several people to change the linen under you. Linen changes are frequent because your stomach gets in the way of your ability to reach the urinal or you don’t fit on a bedpan. Okay, this is getting really morose and you can tell where my occupation lies. Still, it is your choice but the other problem is, the burden you become on the health care system. You eat your way into illness and then society has to pick up the tab. Now I’m getting into politics but – the only way a national health care system will work is if each person becomes responsible for their own health. Since I have serious doubts about that happening with processed food being so addictive, lets put a high tax on processed food, cigarettes, etc. That way, we are not taking away the choice to eat unhealthy but a person who makes that choice will be paying for their own health care. Even a tax just on soda would probably do it. This sounds like a great group of people listening to this debate. Everyone seems to want to live healthfully and probably if we lived according to any one of the speakers, we would be okay healthwise. Why can’t we get together as a movement to put pressure on our government to tax unhealthy things in order to pay for healthcare? Now I’m off my soapbox. If you made it this far, thanks for listening.
But who decides what’s healthy? Clearly not much of a consensus going on here.
Well said, Pat.
I am not sure, but I thought perhaps you were responding to my post. If so, please understand that I am not espousing the philosophy that “you can eat whatever you want.” Although, people ARE free to choose, what I am actually espousing is a responsible, principled approach to eating that takes into consideration ones unique dietary and health needs, is based on what that person has come to understand through their own research research and that, reflects a lifestyle that meshes with both their physical needs and moral/ethical beliefs. I am not saying that the SAD way of eating is ok. I am just not going to espouse a one-size fits all approach to healthy living.
Diabetes can be reversed with eating a plant based diet, not meat. Even the medical field is finally get this.
I know VEGAN weight lifters that have been vegan for over 25 years and have won awards.
Meat is addictive and that is why people crave it, even after detox.
There is scientific research that has been done on getting enough protein and nutrients from plants- Dr. Tuttle, Dr Campbell, Dr McDougall, Dr Furham. (to name a few)
There is also reasearch done that our ancestors were savengers and would eat dead animals they found. Regardless of this, they did not have the food sources that we have now to be healthy. Protein is in beans, tofu, vegetables, avocados, etc. We have seeds to grow healthy vegetables.
Most of the grains grown are to feed animals for their felsh. Even grass fed animals kills wildlife, as well as the people that raise the grass fed animals (killing any predators or perceived ones). It also displaces land for wildflife and results in their death. There is not enough land to feed the population on grass fed animals.
“Rethinking Meat Guggler” in the New York Times and “Eating As If The Planet Mattered”.
Studies done that vegan women convert DHA better from vegan resources than people who eat fish. Also, toxics in fish negate the health benefits. A lot of studies in Europe done to substantiate this. US is still too subdized by meat and diary that donates millions to propogate this lie. As well, as the government helps this.
I am vegan and have Post Polio Syndrome. Every doctor is amazed that I do not take pain killers, antidepressants, antiflammatory meds. (which people with PPS do). The conventional wisdom it that I should be eating lots of meat. I do not take any meds and am thriving. I do not crave meat or diary. I am type O which also implicates that I should be eating meat.
Sounds like Sissan wants to eat meat because he ENJOYS it-the taste and wants to justify his addiction.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that diabetes cannot be reversed with a diet including meat. There are many many examples of this in people following primal/paleo diets. Many no longer need insulin and tests come back normal.
I am not diabetic, but have developed insulin resistance and blood sugar related migraines, Among other issues. These symptoms developed while eating a well-planned, “healthy”, vegetarian diet for 10 years, part of it vegan. If someone chooses vegetarianism/veganism, that is their right; however, these false statements are unnecessary. I will necer go back to vegetarianism ad it is not healthy for me.
Vegetarian or vegan?
You can’t just say “plant based diets will Reverse Diabetes” thats a blanket statement and incorrect.
If one is overweight and that is the main issue causing thier diabetes then YES any diet that promotes weight loss will help reverse it. NOW in saying that Diabetes can be Genetic and even if you eat healthy and are a great weight you can still have blood suger problems ie Diabetes.
I am working on the same diet he is on. I try to eat as much raw in the veggies etc as I can. But the diet he is on you will also find on know the cause dot com. Doug Kaufman as been talking about this kind of a diet for years to heal us. Reason is because of the fungus and mold in foods etc. Plus the hormones and things they feed to the animals that is bad for us. Also the processed foods with chemicals, you name it. I am slowly healing and feeling better because of it.
But you have to buy grass fed beef, chicken that has no steriods etc. Even if you don’t eat meat if you have a natural protein but low carb and no yeast you will see a difference. Love this Kevin, it is nice to see other diets and others point of view.
I forgot one thing though, I don’t eat high fat. I find my body will gain weight. But I also found if I eat wheat and breads etc I feel sick, tired and gain weight.
I love eating veggies raw if possible. Sometimes my tummy will hurt for it. But if I eat meat it needs to be learner and like grass fed or whatever or again I gain weight and feel aweful.
I really think that instead of being angry with this guy or any of them we need to see this is what they believe and what works for them. Good for them if this is working. And thank them for taking the time to tell us their side of it.
We don’t need to be mean or put anyone down. Find what works for you. Share with others just in cause it would work for them. If they tell you it is not for them, well so be it. No one is equal. What works for my body may not work for you. What I do believe though is all should eat lots of veggies and some fruit, nuts and seeds. Meat etc is a choice. I do believe there are other good sources of protein besides meat. Lets me kind and respect each others idea, as we would want them to be respectfull to ours.
Thanks Kevin and Annmarie, so helpful to look at opposites and oppo-same views. GREAT JOB OVERVIEW:
All you need to know in life is the VALUE and Importance of things to not be lost. The ability to analyze and evaluate data and CONSIDERATIONS is never lost we can always improve our abilities to perceive anything we want to know about.
CONSIDERATIONS ARE THE MOST BASIC THINGS OF LIFE SOURCES AND WE ALL CREATE THEM, THAT’S OKAY, FINE AND AS IT SHOULD BE TO HAVE GAMES.
The key is understanding others, ourselves and our motives ultimately, takes practice and help at times. Survive is this universes basic goal including bodies, but the BIG BEINGS do best by creating new games that are fun even though we have agreed to disagree in order to have games.
Enduring and destroying are tedious but sometimes work to keep body games going.
BEST TO ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING AND SAYING, DOESN’T MEAN WE AGREE BUT LESS FIGHTS THAT WAY and one can pause to refresh ones knowledge without all the interference from others, eh?
SO MANY CONSIDERATIONS, it’s all relative to viewpoints and conditions…so WE’RE ALL RIGHT AS BEINGS!
LOVE AND COURAGE TO US ALL, we need all the help we can get, ALOHA, Mario!
It’s like Mark says – everybody feels stress in modern day society, doesn’t matter if you’re vegan, vegetarian or paleo/primal. Mark tells it like it is. If you did the research you would see that paleo man was in fact a hunter – there is evidence of that in fossils and tools that have been found. Paleo man also went for days without eating anything because he was unable to find food.
I think Mark unfortunately came across as endorsing large amounts of meat and animal protein – not true! He promotes eating only enough animal protein to sustain you biologically. As he says, it’s all individual – it totally depends on your metabolism as to how you should eat.
As for how the animals are raised – ethical farming where you buy the meat direct from the farmer does not support factory style farming where the animals are crammed into pens, fed crap and never see the outside! On the contrary, humanely raised organic animals are raised outside eating grass and are treated humanely – including how they are killed. I believe the movie Food Inc. points out the difference and how much better organic farming is.
Yes, you do have to balance out the acid producing meat with lots of vegetables. You also have to watch what types of fish you eat in order to control the amount of mercury you inevitably consume in addition to the fish. Accordingly, you need to stick to small fish because of that. There is less mercury in small fish. Also, eat wild salmon from Alaska – there’s less mercury from that salmon.
If you eat grain – grain converts to sugar quickly in the North American body! Again, it all depends on your ethnic origin. For instance, people from China and Japan can handle rice and digest it much easier than someone of a European origin.
Frederic, even plants deemed organic are suseptible to becoming contaminated by a farmer close by who uses pesticide. It’s carried by the wind.
You obviously haven’t eaten organic meat or wild fish or organic free range chicken or eggs. It simply tastes better. You can actually taste the food! It is good. I don’t think Mark advocates eating huge amounts or protein. A human being should only consume around 25 to 30 grams of protein at best. Most people will not feel well if they eat more than that. If one eats meats of any kind you should not consume more than the size of your hand anyway – that’s way too much protein!
As for eating mostly fruit – no no – way too much sugar in the form of fructose! You should consume no more than 15 grams of fructose a day according to Dr. Mercola. Even dietitions will tell you not to consume too much fruit! The sugar in the fruit is not good for you.
Myself, I eat mostly vegetables with a little meat and sometimes I eat grain in the form of whole grain such as quinoa. I don’t follow Paleo to a tee. I think that some grains are beneficial for some people.
Yes, your body needs complex carbs. Can you get all your complex carbs from vegetables alone?
The people who have problems with diabetes are eating simple sugars rather than complex carbs with bad forms of fat rather than Omega 3 fats. Frederic – you do mean complex carbs right?
Your genes also tell you what you should eat to be healthy. If you truly listen to your body you will only eat what makes you feel good and eliminate all the harmful carbs and fats. Your body tells you when you have had too much of any one thing. If you listen to that – you should do well. If your body reacts negatively to gluten and gliaden then avoid foods containing those. Same with meat.
That’s just it – there are some foods you simply can’t eat raw! You have to cook them somewhat in order to digest them properly. Asparagus is one that you have to cook in order to process the enzymes.
Okay, so how do you explain how the Inuit and Eskimos have been able to exist and stay healthy on a mostly meat and Omega 3 fat diet from whale and seal and caribou? Again, it’s dependent upon your genetics – a lot of what you can eat and tolerate and thrive on has to do with your ethnic background.
I agree with you Frederic – you should eat at least a pound of greens a day in addition to fruit. That’s it – eat a wide variety of foods including nuts and seeds and greens.
You’re right about us adapting to the changes in our environment. I think in the last 10 to 15000 years our bodies have probably adapted to eating grains or we’d all be dead by now. Having said that, I also agree with sufficient exercise.
You’re right, there is a lot of confusion and that’s why you should eat what’s right for your body. Listen to your body and it will tell you what to eat. If you don’t feel well after eating something, then don’t eat it again!
I agree with getting your nutrition from “whole foods” – very important. Raw calcium is very important for preventing osteoporosis.
On the other hand, avocados are rich in potassium, magnesium and good Omega 3 fats! A whole avocado will not make you fat. In fact, from what I have been reading about cancer treatment, which was given to me by my naturopath, an avocado a day is actually very good for you when you have cancer as I do.
Grok on Mark! Love ya!
Hey Darlene,
I enjoyed what you had to say. But I need to tell you Quinoa is not a grain but a seed. I did some research on it because I can’t eat grains. Quinoa is a great sub for bread etc. I also find in small amounts I can have it. I came up with a recipe to make it just like bread.
I really enjoy listening to all sides of different diets. You never know what you might learn or also what confirms for you why you are on the diet you are.
I believe it was Mark Sisson who said that there were no examples of a people who thrived without eating meat.
Well that does not seem to be true in my POV. The Indian Vedic civilization, mainly vegetarian, has thrived in ancient times, has survived the onslaught of Alexander-the-Great, the Mongols, Islam, Christianity, … all these have come, thrived for a bit and gone… but the Vedic Culture has survived for tens of thousands of years… now, while the western culture is aggressively rushing the world head long into oblivion by spreading McDonald’s cheese-burgers and sugary soft drinks… the ancient Vedic Culture is spreading gently all over the world via relaxation of yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, knowledge of our true nature and oneness, compassion, self-less-service, sharing and caring… and vegetarianism…
who will survive in the long run?
so let’s take a look at the “home” of vegetarianism :
38th IVU World Vegetarian Congress – Origin & History of Vegetarianism in India
extract from: http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=65452
A Short Abstract
India is home to about 70% of world’s vegetarians with a history as old as the human civilization itself. Over thousands of years, withering many storms, Indian vegetarians have sustained and flourished to show the people outside a lifestyle which is more compassionate, healthy, and in harmony with nature. In India, traditionally, a vegetarian diet is considered to be very sober and having positive impact on our physical as well as mental health. Therefore, even a traditional non-vegetarian is more of a vegetarian than a non-vegetarian because on most of the days he is dependent on a vegetarian diet and even on meat eating days, it is mostly a vegetarian fare except for one or two side dishes.
“I have nothing new to tell the world, Truth and Non-violence are as old as mountains” Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest apostles of non-violence the world has ever seen, had said once. I am here in front of you, one of the most august gatherings the world has ever produced, today to speak about the ‘Origin and History of Vegetarianism in India’. The truth about the history of vegetarianism in India is always there for everyone to see though history is subject to one’s interpretations based on excavations and evidences available and there are many such versions of it. Instead of attempting to analyse and present before you all these versions, I concentrate my focus on giving you the essence of vegetarianism in India which in itself represents the essence of history of vegetarianism in India. Therefore, I am going to present some truths which I believe are true based on the evidences I had gathered from learned authorities on Indian way of living and reading of some of the authoritative books and the interpretations I have arrived at based on my own experiences.
Before going into the origin and history of vegetarianism in India, I need to tell you, in the Indian context, what we mean by vegetarian and non-vegetarian.
What do we mean by vegetarian in India?
for rest of article see link: http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=65452
According to some estimates, at present, India is home to about 1160 million people out of which about 40% (464 million) are vegetarians who do not eat meat at all.
This makes about 70% of world’s all vegetarians, by far the largest concentration of vegetarians in any part of the world and the highest proportion of vegetarians in any population. Therefore, India can be rightly called as the home of vegetarians!
from: http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=65452
Those Indians you speak of are not vegan – they eat animal byproducts especially dairy, and only people in the top Caste must be vegetarian – the rest can eat non-bovien meat. (Lowest case, enslaved peoples from other tribes i.e. the Untouchables, are allowed to eat dead cow carcasses)
Frederic was so informative. He was strait and honest,very scientific and very respectful.willing to look at all information to become better all the time, he will never spin his wheels for this reason. I admire him and his views.
so brain function is improved and the comment that vegetarian/vegan that are moody, I know a heck of a lot of meat eaters that are extreme moody. serial killers, anyone know of a vegan serial killer???? So to look at that little piece is not right, take the whole picture, who knows maybe you anger them, If I had to defend myself 24/7 I’d be frustrated also. Most people I choose to surround myself with are positive and those that are not, perhaps something in their life is needing some help. my point is look bigger not so narrowed.
People just need to eat carbs thank you Frederic. I agree, my parents were raised on spuds and carbs due to the war and the depression and their parents in the old country ate highcarb, spuds and fuit but not much veggies, also had high animal protein. This has lead to stroke and heart disease, once I took the animal protien out of my diet and added more veggies and fruit my blood and all levels in nutrients have steadied and stayed stong, my daughter is born doing vegetarian and high raw and is doing very well, she is infact a strait A student were I did not get an A no matter how hard I studied, I always felt drained. She has way more energy, and very smart on NO ANIMAL protein from birth.
So many of the speakers and Mr. Sisson saying we have no proof of anyone with a meat free diet living a healthy long thriving diet. Well I know my daughter is one, and I know of many others who have had children since the 30′s on a meat free diet and they are adults today, with vegan children from birth and they all look younger than their age, smarter than your average modern person and active and thriving. So yes there is proof it works, and for the long term yes it does, It did thousands of years ago and it is in the process of being proven now again today. I wish I had started earlier in life but I am feeling healthier and younger and I even get some pretty great ideas from time to time
When I worked at the children’s hospital i saw so many kids (and i mean hundreds of kids) getting the intestines or partial removed, I had a friend whose child was constipated for weeks and months, breath would smell of pooh.she was sick and looked it, and the doctors kept telling mom to increase the fiber and would give her recipes and she followed all this information to the letter,the hospital dietitian stuff also. And the doctor said they were going to have to remove a portion of the colon,
I asked her to please look into an alternative first if that does not work then follow the doc.She listened to me, put her faith in my lifestyle and I found her someone who helped change their diet, meat was first to go, and other things they did that ended up being like Anne Wigmore’s diet. And within one month her bowel movement was her own, no enemas, and within a few for she was happy, clear skin and in a few more she was back in school and playing on the sports team and active, and they went to the doctors to do a follow up check just to see: because the doctor threatened her that her daughter will die without this surgery and that if she waited too long it would be fetal to her daughter. The doctor checked her out on this follow up (after about 7 months) and listened to what mom said, and what they did, and he had the nerve to say
“well it was about time that you followed the diet we gave you, that is the only way she would have recovered, the made up stories you are telling me are not needed to cover it up, he knows the truth he has been a doctor for many years!”
he refused to believe that they did a completely different way of life, competently different eating and fasting.
So narrow mindedness even in health debates are still just as harmful.
This is why I like what Frederic said, he researched to prove something wrong, but was willing to accept the truth when he found it. proud of you, that takes a great person to do that.
anatol, I would agree, isn’t it amazing how people (experts) say that when even if they look at monks, who are fuitarians and the nun that lived mainly by the sunlight and water little food sparingly and live well into the old age. or monks that lived mainly on vegetable and wild herbs and roots for hundreds of years. There are cultures from history that have had a plant based diet. When architects dig up remains of civilizations they find grains,and grain containers and tools to carve and build, I see very little evidence of meat preparations evidence. Some, but very little in comparison to the clay posts and storage posts still filled with ancient grain. Proof of this is in the museums, archeologist books and research, they have so many bowls that they no longer collect them they re bury them. this proves diets were based on plants as they had more than enough for everyone, and only one sacrifice table in an entire city of millions of people.
@ Gayle Siller
Hi Gayle
I’m a type 1 diabetic of 17 years. I’ve tried literally everything from being Vegan to Raw Vegan and Doug Grahams 80/10/10. None worked until I found Dr Richard K Bernstein. My HbA1C is now 5.5% and I aim to get it down to 4.5-5. Its possible using the info from Dr Bernstein. Please check out his forum http://www.diabetes-book.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl
and get his books from your library: http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Bernsteins-Diabetes-Solution-Achieving/dp/0316167169
http://www.amazon.com/Diabetes-Diet-Bernsteins-Low-Carbohydrate-Solution/dp/0316737844
Hope this is of some use and stops you worrying,
all the best
Steve
Liked Mark Sisson though don’t agree about not thriving on veg diet. Mark I learnt a lot and understand better what happens with insulin on high carb diet. Thanks for that Kev and Mark – I feel I have more tools to make better choices as a vegetarian. I do think that through the raw movement there are a lot of discoveries being made that fill those gaps that Mark alluded to. I agree. I made lots of what turned out to be bad choices in my diet. But I understand much better than I did before
I’ve tried multiple times to listen to this debate. All the other dates have worked fine. Of course, this is the one I REALLY wanted to hear.
I should clarify. I can listen to the first 15 minutes, then it quits. This happens with both players.
Patenaude is on know talking on ketonic diet makes real sense I know it is true – it seems moderation is most impt. Obviously as a veg diet is high carb but not eating processed, and junk food must be key. OMG how to put all this together and work out what is right for you. Genetics, good quality org veg food, stay alkaline, get the omega 3s & 9, veg protein – leafy greens and good quality super foods. fasting and colonics, clean high quality water, – From all of this need to be really aware and understand – I don’t do well on gluten grains – other grains seem ok. Patenaude seems to understand. Upshot of this is I am going to read up a whole lot more.
Patenaude knows absolutely nothing about ketosis. He actually thinks
a) it slows down your brain
b) epileptics have fast brains
I had to stop the videoplayer after that, I knew this guy was going to be full of unresearched bullshit.
Ketones make your brain (and heart) run more efficienctly.
Without excess carbs you have no risk of inducing glutamate-related excitotoxicity (unless you eat lots of added MSG or lots of plants containing glutamates), therefore a low carb diet is healthier for the brain – not to mention T2 diabetes is associated with Alzheimer’s and advanced Alzheimer patients’ brain insulin receptors were found to be mostly destroyed.
Childhood epilepsy is caused by faulty glutamate shuttles. We can get glutamate neurotransmitters from our diet but also when glucose and insulin enter the brain. Excess carbs/insulin means excess glutamate. So childhood epileptics go on a special ketogenic diet… I don’t know if they still do this but they would actually dehydrate the patients on purpose, for reasons I can’t quite understand, and this caused an increase incidence of kidney stones.
I found Mark Sisson’s interview interesting especially after looking at his web site indicating that grains cause dental problems and that vegans have worse teeth than the general population. Has anyone had experience on Sisson’s diet of their teeth improving? If you are vegan are your teeth good?
My teeth are better than when I was a meat eater!
So far Frederic summarized it best. His talk made the most sense of all. Plant based diet wins as for me. I don’t feel like going to kill a turkey today.
I understand that people have their opinions and beliefs just like religions. We hold unto our principles. We have to consider our own health and also the one of the planet. Not always easy I concur.
The debate will continue forever as never two people think the same or live the same. I do what make sense to me at the moment.
Mostly raw, mostly plant.
Very interesting. Re Mark Sisson’s comment at the end of the interview that plant-based agriculture abuses the land and meat production doesn’t, I laughed out loud. The obvious fact he didn’t include is that growing meat requires an enormous amount of agriculture (millions of acres of grain and other crops to feed the livestock— corn, wheat, alfalfa, soybeans, sugarbeets etc.). So both forms of conventional agriculture degrade the land through monoculture, soil erosion and application of pesticides and fertilizers etc. I don’t know the statistic offhand, but conventional livestock production in this country accounts for as much or more of the crops that are grown. Grassfed meat is clearly a better option, but it is totally unrealistic that we could produce enough grassfed meat in this country to feed everyone meat as he suggests in the primal diet approach. Plus, grazing of livestock massively degrades the land by its nature. Our paleo ancestors were eating wild animals, not farmed herded and domesticated ones.
Just a few points to add to the mix… thanks!
You confuse non-organic CAFO meat with organic meats fed on their natural diets and preferably raised on small farms which is what Mark Sisson advocates for.
Growing meat fed on naturally occuring low-rainfall pastures/plains doesn’t mess up the environment, especially if you use the manure obtained from the grass pasture to feed a perennial crop garden.
Planting annual monocrops like grains on converted pastures which require more water than grass and quickly drain the soil (especially since there are now less cows to provide for manure and you must rely more exclusively on green manure instead).
This is hard on the soil and non-organic farmers rely on fertilizers made from fossil fuels as well as chemical pesticides/herbicides. But even worst is the soil being bare when you plant new seedlings – this contributes to topsoil erosion which is a serious problem. (Think 1930s Dustbowl)
However I agree, feeding this crap to animals that haven’t evolved to eat it (including feeding grains & soybeans to humans) amounts to a form of nutritional torture. If the government didn’t subsidize King Corn, Big Soy & Big Wheat so much every slice of meat at the supermarkets would be grass-fed, and there wouldn’t really be a need for CAFOs anymore (and antibiotic use on animals would be almost non-existant).
Interesting talks both present solid arguments for their personal diets. It would be interesting to see their blood and health reports (actually of all the speakers).. Also, opinions are fine however formally educated scholarly opinions are more reliable. Both individuals lack any formal education.
People are treated to Frederic Patenaude’s comprehensive explanation about the highly efficient, practical and healthy fruit-based raw vegan diet. Standing relatively alone, except for a very few genuine and experienced doctors, Frederic is less concerned with internet or “health advocate” publishing popularity and more about getting the best information across to help people achieve the best, non-biased health and wellness today.
Most so-called “health-advocates” of today glean popularity by taking such a middle of the road approach that one wonders if they have any experience at all.
It is so refreshing to hear Frederic speak with experience, and CONVICTION, basing his advice and guidance on a real world nutritional model and not something based on personal preferences, ancient history or junk science. Most others base their arguments on correlations not causations when it comes to food and nutrition.
Chris Califano http://www.thefirstsupper.com
I enjoyed these interviews. One criticism I feel inclined to post is in regards to one of Mark’s suggestions. Even though he did say he recommended grass-fed meats he said that if someone could not afford such meats they could get standard super market meat. I feel this is being much too lenient. I do not think it is okay to support factory farming at all in any circumstance. I feel that if one chooses to eat some animal products that they need to choose the source very wisely and carefully and eat small amounts. Thank you Kevin and Annmarie for all these interesting interviews. I especially enjoyed the interview with J.E. Williams and Daniel Vitalis.
I also wanted to add that I did not get the sense that Mark took the animal welfare aspect seriously enough. I think it is even more important to take this seriously if you do eat some animal foods.
That sounds quite elitist – not everyone has the large amount of income required to eat a plant-based diet that contains no cheap, toxic neolithic foods. You’re basically telling poor people to eat lots of government-subsidized grains & grain-based pastas & breads that contain known toxins.
Apparently feeding cows grains that they haven’t evolved to eat without slowly getting sick is unacceptable to you, but feeding humans grains that they never evolved to eat and that can inflict some chronic health problems in most people is somehow okay because apparently the health and well-being of a poor CAFO cow is more important than the health and well-being of a poor working-class human.
I’ve really enjoyed this session, I’ve been working on reversing diabetes 2 for the past 3months. My personal experience so far: I’ve found that eating lots of fruit doesn’t raise my blood sugar IF I keep the daily fat consumption low. If I eat added fat and fruit in the same 24hrs my blood sugar goes up! So right now I’m going really well, eating raw fruit and vegetables in salads and green smoothies (no oils & nuts)- and my morning sugar levels are getting better (which is my personal real test that this is working!)…..Cheers Sylvia K
Fruit has fructose hence why BS doesn’t go up. Fructose goes straight to liver and not blood.
Yeah, and it’s a hepatoxin that keeps your liver from quickly converting excess glucose to fat, thus keeping blood-sugars dangerously high, causing Advanced Glycation Endproducts that induce rapid aging, and forcing your pancreas to secrete even more insulin in an attempt to get your liver to listen to it – end result: you build up insulin resistance faster.
Fructose, along with the lectin class of anti-nutrients in plants and seeds, also promotes leptin resistance. (So does eating many meals per day)
Really enjoyed Marks thoughts esspecially refreshing how he let you know that it’s all about choices and he just wants to let people know just what the potential consequences of these choices are. He wasn’t trying to ram anything down anyone’s neck. I like the idea of “sustainable’ lifestyle
Here is a pic of Sally Fallon:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_tL3OLZ5OuDM/S8KC50wn89I/AAAAAAAADdY/_b7ON4L-O_o/IMG_1697.JPG
Does she look healthy to you? Just keepin’ it real.
That is not Sally Fallon… I have no idea who that is but her picture can be found on this website
This was a very good session, and the last
speaker spoke with great knowledge and authority, though he took care to be fair with his points being made.
Frediric Patenaude was focusing on blood sugar. While it is an excellent marker to dectect a metabolic disorder, it is not necessarily a good marker for a young, healthy, active person. He should have also been looking at blood insulin levels. At present, his pancreas is able to put out enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels in a normal range; that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy diet. At some point his pancreas may likely become exhausted and no longer able to balance blood sugar. Monitoring insulin levels is critical!
Blessings,
Catherine
Wow — there is a serious lack of scientific understanding here. So many, where to begin?
The comments?
Um, meat doesn’t “rot” in the stomach. Learn how digestion really works.
Carbs are rudimentally broken up (not down) in the mouth w/ amylase. PROTEIN and FAT are broken down into larger chunks in the stomach (via pepsin and Hydrochloric Acid) and the upper small intestine (via bile salts)and then mostly absorbed (except what is waste). Carbs need the bacteria of the lower small intestine and large intestine. So technically — because carbs need bacteria to properly “digest” — carbs are the ones actually “rotting. Though I wouldn’t be so silly as to make such an emotionally loaded claim.
How about the speaker?
Not even on the surface does his arguments seem plausible. I mean, he makes serious leaps in logic:
• just because a cat doesn’t taste sweet means that we humans NEED to eat carbs?
• sure ketones are an evolutionary throwback. So is most everything that we do. So is our burning of fat. So should we all look to pack on as much fat as possible? I don’t get the connection — he makes no argument why it’s bad. He simply says that it’s an evolutionary throwback then states it’s bad. Why?
• Why is being so-called acidic bad? Um, that’s actually a moot point because the acid-alkalinity of a food changes during digestion.
I’ll stop now — for the sake of not being a troll. But I want to leave with one more statement — do NOT confuse “thrive” with “surviving”. The Indians that live vegetarian diets have historically had a tendency towards metabolic syndrome. Recall that Ayuvedic medicine has many herbs to control sugar and diabetes. Ever heard of Gymnestra?
For someone claiming to be scientific you sure don’t listen very well…
The acid equation has been mentioned in SEVERAL of the talks! I suggest you relisten to them all.
The cat taste was a COMPARISON! Humans like sweet. Cats like protein. This is according to their tastes.
One consistently overlooked factor is that no one diet fits everyone. Each dietary approach has it’s failures, and blaming the person for ‘failing’ or becoming less healthy on XYZ ideal diet is common among authors. Well, following a dietary guru’s exact instructions and getting the wrong results is a clue that one diet doesn’t fit everyone.
The common factor in all of these eating plans is the avoidance of processed foods and the focus on fresh, whole foods. In that sense one could say they are all on the spectrum of Dr. Melvin Page’s Fundamental eating plan (dentist, researcher) to balance blood chemistry. At different periods of life (or health) one may have to shift across the eating spectrum from vegan to omnivore. But anyone eating ‘real food’ is going to be better off than following the chemical-laden SAD diet due to the exclusion of non-food foods.
In my opinion, genetics does play a huge role in how ‘optimum’ any eating plan is for an individual. After ‘failing’ on upmteen healthy eating plans, I’ve done some genetic testing. I’m gluten intolerant and casein intolerant. Plus I likely have gene changes that handle B vitamins poorly. That explains why following certain eating plans did not make me any healthier but instead accelerated illness.
After having tried and failed (health-wise) on nearly every speaker’s ‘best’ eating plan, I currently I follow a Paleo style plan because it happens to fit my gene patterns. (backed up by lab test improvements). But the next person may do better as a vegan. It’s in the genes and food interactions with gene expression.
We are already engaged in an involuntary national experiment in food and genetics in the USA. Wheat is practically unavoidable, which may be why there’s a dramatic rise in Celiac disorders since the 1950′s. Chemicals in the food supply, pesticides, herbicides, toxic body burdens are taking a toll on national health. The SAD diet is acting as a genetic filter – those people who can survive on it will continue on. Those who don’t do well on SAD are suffering serious health consequences and dying earlier. Now with the addition of GMO foods for both livestock and people, I expect national health to decline even faster.
We have fundamental problems in our food supply and it’s literally killing us because our bodies can’t cope with all the non-food foods and lab-created genetic changes in foods.
Personally, I find the vegan lifestyle very appealing as a philosophy. But lots of us can’t physically cope with any grains at all and actually need animal proteins to be healthy. Does that make us bad people in a vegan world or simply expendable?
To get the right “answers” the right “questions” must be asked. Why wasn’t S. Fallon asked what she thought about “super foods”. Maybe it was not to have her say what she thought of David Wolfe, huh? That would be for me a “debate”!
I noticed several glaring inconsistencies and double-standards in Mark’s opinions:
- He uses an argument against grains that even though we are not all celiac no one should consume them. By this standard, he should have the same view regarding milk. Not many humans are able to digest milk properly and there is nothing natural about it…
- He makes the argument that most vegans didn’t grow up vegan. He’s right, not many of us have had the luxury of having vegan parents. I wish I had! And hopefully there was no irreversible effects done. However, to counter Mark’s claim, perhaps HE is riding the coattails of his previous high carb (i.e. mostly vegetarian) with his great health today.
- He also claims he doesn’t think exercise regimes are necessary in a good diet. He criticized high carbohydrate diets saying they need to run to burn off the calories. Yet then he goes on to talk about exercise regimes in his diet…Well, which is it? I mean any SANE person would recommend exercise!
- Cholesterol is KNOWN to have inherent health detriments when it elevates. Most researchers know this.
Still doesn’t seem to be any logical reason to consume animal products.
Milk is designed to feed mammalian young and humans can digest milk, they simply lose the ability so it isn’t as bad, despite technically not being primal/paleo.
Grains, however, are only digestible by birds with special dual-chambered stomachs and by some insects. All plants, especially their seeds, since they cannot out-run their predators, have evolved chemical defenses to protect themselves from being eaten by other organisms, whether bacterial, fungal, insectoid, rodent, large herbivore or human. I guess you could also call these chemicals natural pesticides. Some plants have so many chemical defenses they are considered poisonous and inedible to humans.
Humans can easily eat plant foods they’ve been eating for millions of years because they have adapted measures to neutralize most of the natural plant pesticides (humans being pests to plants), however, neolithic foods like grains and soy have their own special set of chemical defenses we have not evolved to handle very well – sure, if you’re starving you can eat them (soy was used to fertilize the soil and as a major protein source only in cases of famine by traditional asian cultures, and grains could be stored by primitve agricultural societies in cases of widespread crop failures)
But they can still damage your body, or at the very least, make you slightly, chronically sick. Hawaiian researchers found that in adition to the well known endocrine-disrupting effects of soy, middle-aged consumers of soy tend to have smaller brains. And wheat gluten proteins were recently found in the myelin sheath of braincells even in non-celiac people (which is bad as gluten loves to trick your immune system into attacking itself and whatever cell it is attached to – thankfully most gluten doesn’t get past the intestinal lining where in 83% of the population your innate gut immune system will mobilize to pre-emptively destroy it but some get through)
Humans have been eating grains for several hundred thousand years, so I don’t really buy that. I’ll still eat some grains and I don’t particularly fear for my health.
Humans have been eating grains for the last 6-12k years. Egyptians ate a lot of grains and the average lifespan was around 18 years of age (partly also due to disease/bad hygiene from cities).
Many people who couldn’t eat grains and live to reproduce died. But those whose health slowly deteriorated over decades can still pass on their genes.
Grass co-evolves with their predators to find ways to kill them more efficiently. Animals that eat grains for millions of years have evolved counter-measures. We haven’t.
Do some Google Scholar searches for grains, gluten, gliadin etc. & inflammation/autoimmune disorders. Like I said, when whole grain proteins find their way in people’s myelin sheaths that’s not exactly a good thing. They also like to stick to other long-lived cells like collagen – there’s an association between rheumatoid arthritis and plant anti-nutrients/lectins (google it) (And some gluten proteins can force your intestines to open their tights junctions to let undigested plant anti-nutrients like other glutens into your bloodstream)
Just the fact that in 83% of people their intestines’ innate immune system will destroy gluten on sight is a sign we havent’s completely evolved to eat grains
Also, I would like to add, most people CANNOT properly digest milk. It leads to many chronic conditions (particularly in people of non-European decent), and other health issues like mucus build-up (did that to me when I drank it), stomach cramps (like in my cousins), etc. So I still think my comparison is apt.
The comparison is not apt due to degrees of severity. But it is apt in terms of both of them being neolithic foods that can cause chronic problems. Perhaps we’re beginning to split hairs here, I don’t know…
Has dairy even made you become anemic from massive blood loss? Has it ever tricked your immune system into destroying your own gut lining so badly you could barely absorb anything? Have you ever heard of anyone that needed emergency surgery to remove absceses (sp?) from infected sections of their intestines because their immune system basically went apeshit on them causing so much damage and being so preoccupied that this paradoxically led to sepsis?
Is there a link between dairy consumption and autoimmune-induced brain damage/cerebrum ataxia to those that are more susceptible? Such as:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15526989
http://www.neurology.org/content/66/3/373.abstract
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/124/5/1013.abstract
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(96)90540-1
Once gluten proteins get into the bloodstream and stick onto your own cells, your immune system sees that cell as a foreign cell with a foreign protein surface and will destroy it.
Also the cholesterol theory of heart disease has been discredited by serious heart disease researchers – we know now it is caused by amongst other things chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and small, dense LDL particles – those created mostly from eating a high-carb diet, ironically enough
Cholesterol levels of less than 160 (or is it 140?) increases the chances of all-cause mortality from cancer to organ failure to homocide to suicide. This is because cholesterol is used everywhere as an anti-oxidant, temporary tissue repair molecule & precursor to steroid hormones like sex hormones.
Half your brain by weigh is made up of cholesterol.
And our body produces it for a reason.
Inflammation caused by a meat eating diet, can be exacerbated by cholesterol no doubt. If you could provide some studies for your claims I would take them more seriously.
Inflammation by a meat diet? Maybe if you eat aged meats and are allergic to amines… or if you eat too many CAFO grain-fed foods with a lot of Omega-6 PUFAs. Do you even know what are the main causes of chronic inflammation? Go google Advanced Glycation Endproducts for starters. (despite the name fructose and PUFAs in high quantity can also get glycated to random protein structures at an even much faster rate than glucose. They call it AGEs to remind people that it causes advanced aging)
Allergies don’t help either, nor does an imbalanced omega-3:6 ratio.
Some of the things I’ve said like your brains being full of cholesterol & steroid hormones being made up of cholesterol, etc. are basic science and can probably be found on wikipedia & by following their cited sources.
The all-mortality rate increase from lower cholesterol is from one of those big (and semi-useless) correlation studies on cholesterol… I believe it was the farmingham study? Or was that the one where the lead researcher said dietary cholesterol had no effect on blood cholesterol profiles? Maybe the nurses’ study or something else. Since you seem to be concerned with cholesterol I’m sure you’ve already heard of these large-scale studies, shouldn’t be that hard to look.
As for heart disease, go ask a young, up-to-date cardiologist or research what “small, dense LDL” is (yes, that’s the actual scientific name for it) this is the only lipid lipoprotein transporter that is small enough to get jammed in between the arterial wall cells under high pressure, get oxidized over time and begin the inflammatory/plaque process. Having high blood pressure and eating an Omega-6 laden highly inflammatory diet will of course make things worse…
I like the kind of laid back attitude Mark has… the other guy I couldn’t listen to after he actually said Ketosis slows your brain (false unless you think neurons slowly dying from excitotoxicity on a high carb, high glutamate-building diet is normal) & epileptics have fast brains (no, they have defective glutamate shuttles and can’t eat artificial or naturally occuring glutamate as well as any carbs as sugar & insulin is used to make glutamate neurotransmitters)
Ketosis also makes your brain and heart run approx. 25% more efficiently because of the way ketone bodies are burned as fuel.
Only downside to ketosis is if you do intense workouts with anaerobic muscles which run on glucose fermentation (especially type IIb muscle fibers that run exclusively on that) your performance will suffer without carb refeeds to restock glycogen stores (but aerobic endurance athletes will do perfectly fine after the 6-weeks adaptation period from directly oxidizing fat instead of glucose)
How do people like mark thrive with all the acidity in their body.
Your body self-regulates its own acid/alkaline ratio to ensure your blood is always slightly alkaline (you’d die if it didn’t)… for example hydrochloric acid that escapes the stomach and enters the upper small intestines is reduced in strenght by baking soda secreted from the upper small intestines to prevent intestinal damage… both baking soda and hydrochloridric acid are also absorbed into the bloodstream.
If you eat too many minerals that turn acidic like potassium or too many minerals that turn alkaline like sodium, your body can either tell your kidneys to get rid of more acid, tell your lungs to push out more CO2 & tell your intestines to make more baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to alkalinize, or your body can tell your kidneys to filter less acids and tell your lungs to hold onto more CO2 (which is acidic) to re-acidify your blood.
Calcium from bones can also be used to counter acidic foods, however acidic nitrogen-containing amino acids from plant & animal proteins are also used to build and maintain bone structure, and as I’ve pointed out your body has other less destructive ways of dealing with pH balance.
If your lungs or kidneys are damaged you will have more difficulty maintaining pH – for kidneys don’t take ridiculous amounts of mineral/electrolyte supplements that need to be filtered out by them or get dehydrated or get chronic infections, don’t take too much salt with too many carbs (especially if you are noticeably overweight/obese or T2 diabetic as these are associated with chronic hyperinsulinemea – elevated insulin tells your kidneys to hold onto excess salt instead of sending it immediately to the bladder. This raises blood pressure which is bad for the kidneys and everything else) As for lung health, don’t overpolute your lungs with toxic substances, and um… don’t become a coal miner… and you’ll be able to balance your pH levels just fine (as I already mentioned, you would get extremely sick and die if your pH balance dropped or rose to any significant degree)