Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: sabertooth on October 03, 2012, 12:12:55 pm
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I've been working on a new approach that may help correct whatever imbalances that I had acquired.
I have been tring to find a suitable substitute for coconut butter, I tried real butter for a couple of weeks and it helped me gain back some weight, but it doesn't seem to digest very well. I have also tried adding some greens and one piece of fruit a day. The carbs helped increase my apatite, but the fiber interferes with my digestion. I am not sure if I will ever re-adapt to eating more plants, nor am I sure that its something I should keep tring at, if it gives me no good results.
Now I am going a different direction and would like to know if anyone has experience with using olive oil as a secondary fat source. I have been taking a swig out of the bottle between meals, and so far I have been tolerating it well.
I am also starting to eat chicken. The cartilage and bones are soft enough to chew up. Anyone else eat chicken bones?
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If you're going for plants I'd recommend fermenting them until they're real soft. That should make it easier on the digestive system. Even consider cooking(boil/steam/slow cook) them.
I've tried olive oil when I was first trying to "eat healthy". I gave me heartburn and possibly screwed my o3:o6 ratio, because my cognitive function was declining(absent-minded, learning difficulty, needed more sleep), but I was drinking like 4~10 tablespoons a day because I was trying to be low carb, I don't have other fat sources and because the oldest person on the planet uses it liberally :D. I was also eating 10~30 raw commercial eggs per day which may have overloaded my system(talk about farting factory).
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If you're going for plants I'd recommend fermenting them until they're real soft. That should make it easier on the digestive system.
I recommend this also. Secondly, when choosing fruits and vegetables choose ones with more soluble fiber than insoluble fiber. Thirdly, keep 4h on either side of the meal to help empty and seperate the plant matter from the meat matter... I find if I eat fish for breakfast, wait 4-5 hours, then eat plants, then wait 4h then eat meat for dinner I have no problems.
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what about avocado? i've been doing really well with them lately. i eat them with my meat. butter was working well for me for a while, but now it's not so i switched to a raw coconut oil. for some reason i still don't do well with the coconut butter and i'm too lazy to try making my own coconut creme again, but i will one of these days :)
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Yes, avocados, olives, safus, various nuts, whole coconuts, etc.
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There is also fermented coconut oil available, which was the traditional method of extraction:
http://www.coconutoilshop.co.nz/order-coconut-oil/speciality-range/ (http://www.coconutoilshop.co.nz/order-coconut-oil/speciality-range/)
(personally, to keep things simple, I am just eating animal fat with no vegetable oil sources)
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We had a discussion here about olive oil that would be really good for you to read- but I can't find it with the search function! grrr.
The problem with olive oil is that most olive oils are rancid - old. You would need to find oil that has a HARVEST date on it. The longest an olive oil should be eaten from the harvest date is a year but I can start to taste the difference after 6 months.
Australia has better laws regarding labeling so those are often the best oils. Oils from Italy are often the worst because they will ship the crappiest stuff TO Italy, put it in a fancy bottle and charge a fortune for it because people believe that oil from Italy is the best.
In the last couple of decades I've only had good olive oil at two restaurants that imported their oils from small farms themselves and from Con Olio here in Austin. They do ship. Good olive is expensive - but it is my opinion that you shouldn't bother with olive oil at all unless you get the good fresh stuff.
It was my impression that you had very good sources for animal fats no? I would stick with that unless you are willing to spend the bucks and time to find the best fresh pure olive oils. Most people btw cannot even tell when olive oil is rancid because they have never tasted or smelled fresh olive oil - it's that big of a problem. I tried every olive oil at WF and not ONE of them was fresh btw.
I personally ADORE my good olive oil! I like variety to my food preparation and good olive oil gives a fabulous peppery, sharp taste to foods that can't be beat. If it's fresh olive oil you would have a really hard time just drinking lots of it as it would burn the back of your throat. When olive oil is rancid it no longer burns and loses that pepper flavor.
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All the olive oil I have tasted was horrible!
If I was to choose the tastiest oils to me are avocado and macadamia - yum yum :)
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If you want a high quality olive oil, get denocciolato. It's made from the flesh only, no pit.
Anyway, all oils tastes awful to me. Butter is the only thing that I could consider edible, but butter sucks for other reasons.
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It doesn't matter what kind of oil, what brand, flesh or pit, virgin or not IF it is old/rancid. The MOST important thing about oil in general - but especially olive oil in particular - is the HARVEST DATE....not the press date because the olives could be around a half a year or a year before being pressed so that the oil is rancid while being made!
The only way to really know if your oil is fresh is to train your nose and palate and the only way to do that is to have fresh oil available to learn with. Someone to teach you helps too. ;)
Sabertooth - I guarantee your oil is rancid no matter how you feel from it and suggest you not drink it. No one can take a swig of fresh olive oil without burning up the back of their throat. If it doesn't hurt like hell what you are doing, then your oil is rancid.
aLp - if you never had fresh oil of course you would think that all oil is horrible because rancid oil is truly a horrible thing that is very bad for the body. It is extremely difficult to locate good oil. Sometimes the only way to do it is to make it yourself with fresh ingredients you have grown yourself. It's even difficult to find a fresh seed for sale these days in the store! You can't make fresh oil from rancid seeds. If you can't even buy a fresh nut or seed why think that the oil that could be years old on the shelf would be good for you? Oils do NOT get better with time like other foods do as they ferment. The fresher the better and it is now almost impossible to find fresh oils. I used to be able to get high quality oils easily so I know what they should taste and feel like. The standards seem to have gone through the floor and the few companies that were really doing it right seem to have gone out of business. I feel very grateful for Con Olio - but I miss all the other wonderful oils that I no longer can locate fresh. :(
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I have been tring to find a suitable substitute for coconut butter
I found the Wilderness Family Naturals centrifuged coconut oil that was recommended in this forum by multiple people to be vastly superior to Artisana coconut butter. I don't love centrifuged coconut oil, but Artisana coconut butter is one of my least favorite foods I've tried and made me nauseous, so the fact that I can stomach centrifuged coconut oil surprised me.
Now I am going a different direction and would like to know if anyone has experience with using olive oil as a secondary fat source.
I occasionally use it as a salad oil.
I don't consider plant fats to be a necessity when there are animal fats, but I do eat some and like to try new things. Some other plant fat sources are macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, olives, centrifuged olive oil, palm oil (I haven't seen a version advertised as both centrifuged and sustainable yet), durian fruit (available in California), unheated flaxseed oil or freshly ground flax seeds, allegedly raw cacao nibs and white chocolate, and ackee fruit (it's usually cooked, but can be eaten raw if prepared with care to avoid poisoning.
Anyone else eat chicken bones?
Do you mean raw? I've only tried it so far with low-slow-cooked chicken bones.
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thanks to paleophil, i did just this week try wilderness family naturals centrifuged coconut oil and i love it!!! it doesn't make me nauseas at all and i actually really like the taste. they have a cold pressed coconut oil too, i didn't like that one as well.
agree on artisana... i don't like that one either.
i've not been needing much water at all these days in my workout so i think adding coconut oil as easy to digest fat did the trick for now.
people who eat nuts.... you can actually digest them??, lol. they go right through me just as they went in. i don't get anything out of them. i figure if i can ever actually get hold of some truly fresh ones i'll try again.
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ionna - have you tried soaking, dehydrating and making your nuts into nutbutter? That's how Brian digests them. I don't seem to have problems with nuts, but my digestive fire seems to be pretty strong these days. I can tell however when a nut is rancid or old just like with the olive oil. Most nuts in the stores are just garbage. WF can be hit or miss. Some nuts it is extremely rare to find fresh in my experience - macadamias, cashews and hazelnuts come to mind. There's a shop here in Austin that only does nuts and sometimes I can get some fresh nuts from there but even that is hit or miss too.
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I love to douse my fatty white fish in olive oil and tangarine juice. I am sure I get some calories from that. You can make a nice sauce with a few tablespoons of olive oil, a single egg yolk, and some tangerine juice. No need to mix it into a mayonaise, just swirl it around some til its together.
I don't suggest taking swigs of anything between meals, just have proper meals and you will be fine, and have some time of digestive rest between hours.
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ive gnawed on raw chicken bones and love the cartilage. only the end of the leg bones seems digestible, but i make sure to chew it down pretty well. i like to crack the length of the legs with my teeth and try and get all the goodness and marrow out. i dont like eating too much chicken though, i know there have been months were for whatever reason i have craved turkey, so that is basically all the meat/fat i ate, and definitely felt sore/swollen and weird after a while, i think it is because it is so omega 6 heavy, especially since i only had an "organic" source, not necessarily pastured and most likely heavily grain fed
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thanks to paleophil, i did just this week try wilderness family naturals centrifuged coconut oil and i love it!!!
Glad to hear that, Ionna
people who eat nuts.... you can actually digest them??, lol.
Not really, LOL. I rarely eat them, as I don't digest them well and don't notice any benefits from them, but they are a plant fat source for desperate vegans/vegetarians who need fat and there is evidence that humans and pre-humans ate them going back millions of years ("Early Humans Skipped Fruit, Went For Nuts" http://news.discovery.com/human/human-ancestor-diet-nuts.html (http://news.discovery.com/human/human-ancestor-diet-nuts.html)).
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Yes, avocados, olives, safus, various nuts, whole coconuts, etc.
NO, it's all SHIT! -d Absolute dog shit, with the exception of coconuts.
Löwenherz
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Could you expand and explain such a statement? There was nuts in the paleolithic, hunthers-gatherers and chimps eat nuts (see PaleoPhil's post just above). We have no problems at all with those foods as long as we eat them in the proper amount, the amount regulated by our instinct.
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I am totally with you on that Iguana!
but they are a plant fat source for desperate vegans/vegetarians who need fat
ehem - I don't fit that description and I love nuts and the plant sources of fat listed! I feel like they add a lot to my diet. Perhaps I am a little desperate? I go crazy for fat in general - I also love suet, marrow, fatty fish, egg yolks etc. I like to think that I don't go overboard with any of them - but I might be wrong. I eat as much of any of those things as feels good to me. I digest them all just fine and they all taste good - as long as they are fresh.
The only way for me to really determine if they do some kind of long-term damage would be to give them up for a good long while and see if I feel any better or worse - which I have done with most of the things mentioned - but felt no big difference - unlike when I have given up other things (like dairy) and did feel a big difference.
Such prejudice against plants! ;) The avocado is such a blessing, it's hard for me to imagine anyone feeling so hostile to my beloved avocados. :-*
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Could you expand and explain such a statement? There was nuts in the paleolithic, hunthers-gatherers and chimps eat nuts (see PaleoPhil's post just above). We have no problems at all with those foods as long as we eat them in the proper amount, the amount regulated by our instinct.
Iguana,
the VARIETY of plant fats you mentionend was never present in any paleolithic diet of any paleolithic man at any time.
Coconuts came from tropical Asia, safus from Africa, macadamias from Australia, avocadoes from South America etc. "Primitive" men were able to thrive on locally available foods, modern people following absurd "instincto" rules are not.
Olives, avocadoes, almonds and many other so called "healthy fat" sources are nothing else than overbred neolithic products like durians etc. Wild almonds and avocadoes are inedible and toxic. Nuts are full of antinutrients and enzyme inhibitors. It's a fact that humans are not able to digest nuts properly even if they taste wonderful. I love the taste of hazelnuts - always - but dog shit may be better for my body.
Our ancestors in Europe may have eaten some walnuts and hazelnuts ONCE in a year in times of scarcity. These nuts go rancid very quickly due to their high pufa content. Todays preserving technologies have not been available. Our ancestors have eaten a huge variety of fats from wild animals. Olive oil and other over-hyped neolithic plant products evolved out of scarcity. It's no coincidence that some of the greatest ancient fat sources like wisent and aurochs are extinct.
For my part, I can tell you that I know for sure that all commonly available plant fats with the exception of coconuts are not only completely unnecessary for my health but indeed harmful IF I use them as a substantial source of calories. I was so brainwashed about healthy plant fats and evil animal fats that I needed years to realize it. The healthy plant fats idea has exactly the same origin as the healthy whole grain madness. But I'm not saying that a handful of well preserved mold-free nuts will kill anyone. They are just as important for us as french fries.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence (see my next post) that an imbalance of w3 and w6 fatty acids causes a HUGE variety of human illnesses. Nuts and other unhealthy plant fats cause such imbalances. We are definteley no apes or squirrels for whom nuts are good food.
Löwenherz
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Our ancestors in Europe may have eaten some walnuts and hazelnuts ONCE in a year in times of scarcity. These nuts go rancid very quickly due to their high pufa content. Todays preserving technologies have not been available.
Nuts in their shell will keep for a looong time as long as they are in a dry place. I have hazelnuts that stay fine for a year and more, and they are not in a fridge..
There is overwhelming scientific evidence (see my next post) that an imbalance of w3 and w6 fatty acids causes a HUGE variety of human illnesses. Nuts and other unhealthy plant fats cause such imbalances. We are definteley no apes or squirrels for whom nuts are good food.
Please, you can never eat so much nuts that it will cause you w3/w6 imbalance.. oils and fats is a different thing, but I just can't imagine such imbalances from whole foods.
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Nuts in their shell will keep for a long time as long as they are in a dry place. I have hazelnuts that stay fine for a year and more, and they are not in a fridge..
Please, you can never eat so much nuts that it will cause you w3/w6 imbalance.. oils and fats is a different thing, but I just can't imagine such imbalances from whole foods.
The nuts from the trees in my garden always go rancid quickly, even in the shell. Our paleolithic ancestors had no ovens.
Of course, you can easily eat so much bad whole foods that you get an imbalance in your body. Our brains are affected immediately as studies with depressive patients show.
Löwenherz
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Well hazelnuts and almonds from my garden are good for a year and more. Not sure why are you involving ovens now.
I really doubt that someone can eat more than 100g of nuts in a day, as many have said they are not so easy to digest raw.. so 100g of hazelnuts for example has 6g of omega 6. Almonds have 12g. If you think that those amounts will create you some imbalances then you're just paranoid in my opinion.
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Well hazelnuts and almonds from my garden are good for a year and more. Not sure why are you involving ovens now.
Iguana was talking about nut consumption in paleolithic times. Nontoxic almonds didn't exist in that era.
And for hazelnuts you need ovens or warm dry air in heated homes to properly dry them. Otherwise they will be quickly full of aflatoxins which is a very potent carcinogen. That's the reason why raw nuts are not available in any foodstore.
And yes, an amount of 100 grams of nuts daily indeed causes imbalances no matter if you are already paranoid or not.
Löwenherz
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I am totally with you on that Iguana!
ehem - I don't fit that description and I love nuts and the plant sources of fat listed! ....
Hey! No fair! :) You left out this part of my sentence: "and there is evidence that humans and pre-humans ate them going back millions of years." I eat them too, just not a lot because I don't digest them well (which is likely largely due to my suboptimal digestion rather than to a problem of the nuts themselves), haven't noticed any benefits from them and am not thrilled by their taste unless I add dried fruits, which I tend to eat too much of, resulting in negative effects for me. I don't extrapolate that into thinking that nuts are of no use or even unhealthy for most or everyone and I may add Brazil nuts to my shopping list for the extra selenium, especially if I try the Lugol's protocol.
Olives, avocadoes, almonds and many other so called "healthy fat" sources are nothing else than overbred neolithic products like durians etc. Wild almonds and avocadoes are inedible and toxic.
True, though they are stand-ins for the plant fat sources that our ancestors ate going back millions of years, as pointed out in the article above. I suspect that the original African ones would be healthier and the Neolithic versions might still be healthy, even if not as much.
Our ancestors in Europe may have eaten some walnuts and hazelnuts ONCE in a year in times of scarcity.
Grok wept. It seems like you're just making it up as you go along. At least this gives me a chance to show Dorothy that I'm not totally condemning nuts. While wild almonds were quite toxic in pre-Neolithic times, hazelnuts were not. Enormous middens of hazelnut shells have been found in Europe. Here is one example:
Archaeologists uncover 9,000-year-old hunter-gatherer house on Britain's Isle of Man
BY Alexandra Hazlett
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Updated Wednesday, August 12th 2009, 1:44 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2009/08/12/2009-08-12_archaeologists_uncover_9000yearold_huntergather_house_on_britains_isle_of_man.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2009/08/12/2009-08-12_archaeologists_uncover_9000yearold_huntergather_house_on_britains_isle_of_man.html)
What was life like 4,000 years before Stonehenge was built? Archaeologists have just uncovered more clues.
The scientists uncovered the ruins of a 9,000 year-old-house on Great Britain's Isle of Man, according to Discovery News.
The house is more than 9,000 years old, and one of the oldest and best-preserved specimens in Britain, the report stated. Curiously, the remains were surrounded by buried mounds of burned hazelnut shells, leading the archaeologists to speculate that the nuts were a major part of the hunter-gatherer inhabitants' diet. ....
You're also failing to consider the possible beneficial hormetic effect of small amounts of toxins: http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/ (http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/)
I agree that nut/fruit fats are probably not as optimal as animal fats, but you're painting an excessively negative picture that isn't supported by the evidence.
These nuts go rancid very quickly due to their high pufa content. Todays preserving technologies have not been available.
Yet primitive Africans process and eat mongongo nuts, bambara groundnuts (a legume that's related to the peanut, but is edible raw and unblanched, as is the S. American groundnut, aka "jungle peanut" http://www.rawguru.com/store/raw-food/raw_wild_organic_jungle_peanuts.html (http://www.rawguru.com/store/raw-food/raw_wild_organic_jungle_peanuts.html)) and palm oil using only simple tools--sometimes nothing more than a rock crack open nuts or fire to roast nuts to make them easier to open by hand.
Bambara Groundnut - Foodskey (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW_re4Lgx1g#ws)
The !Kung San of Botswana
The !Kung diet is predominantly composed of plant foods.
By far the single largest source of calories is the mongongo nut and the fruit that surrounds it. The fruit is eaten raw or gently stewed in a metal pot (a relatively recent introduction). The nuts are roasted, shelled and eaten plain. During certain parts of the year, they eat almost nothing but mongongo nuts.
- Stephan Guyenet, PhD, http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/06/food-reward-dominant-factor-in-obesity.html (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/06/food-reward-dominant-factor-in-obesity.html)
While the Bushmen likely ate less nuts in the past when meat was less scarce, they don't appear to be faring that badly on a nut-heavy diet, despite the evil PUFAs. No one has yet bothered to offer an explanation or counter-evidence regarding that, despite all the heated rhetoric here and elsewhere. It seems like the focus is more on winning debates than understanding.
Heck, even chimps process and eat nuts...
Chimps cracking nuts with stone tools (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqk6WApTOXQ#) ...so the idea that past humans couldn't have without modern kitchen gadgets is ridiculous.
For my part, I can tell you that I know for sure that all commonly available plant fats with the exception of coconuts are not only completely unnecessary for my health but indeed harmful IF I use them as a substantial source of calories.
Are you suggesting that your experience is strong evidence for anyone else besides you?
We are definteley no apes or squirrels for whom nuts are good food.
We are primates, and primates have been eating nuts and other plant-fat sources for millions of years, as the evidence shows. Even you admit to eating coconuts.
And for hazelnuts you need ovens or warm dry air in heated homes to properly dry them. Otherwise they will be quickly full of aflatoxins which is a very potent carcinogen. That's the reason why raw nuts are not available in any foodstore.
Raw hazelnuts and other raw nuts and blanched (briefly boiled) peanuts are sold in my local healthfood stores. If ovens or heated homes are required, then please explain how nuts were a staple food for traditional Bushmen even before they had those technologies.
Iguana was talking about nut consumption in paleolithic times. Nontoxic almonds didn't exist in that era.
Iguana already pointed you to the article I cited about nuts (and other foods) that were consumed going back even before H. sapiens. If you don't address that, then you're effectively conceding the point to Iguana.
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I am doing well with some nuts. But not many. And I am very picky about the quality. My favorit are wild Siberian Zederkernels. I try to get wild, fresh nuts. I eat them for dessert after a fish meal or something. Bad quality nuts are very bad for me. And too many and regularely.. But sometime I almost crave nuts! If I am not picky about quality then, it ends a bit bad.
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Phil - you have more than redeemed yourself! ;)
My opinion is that these arguments about plants not being what they were back in paleolithic times is lame. Nothing we eat is the same as it was back in paleolithic times! The suet from the cows I eat certainly isn't.
Everything has been hybridized to death and finding truly wild animals that live off of wild foods and not eating from farms or getting at least some modern agricultural food as at least part of their diet is not what most of us here are able to do. I know I'm not able to.
I'm not living in paleolithic times. I'm living in a modern world and shopping! I have to choose the best I can from what I have available to me. I can't even get a whole fresh animal. I don't have access to what my paleolithic ancestors had and they don't have access to what I have.
For me it is interesting to know what they ate, but I can't depend solely on that information to decide what to eat for myself. They might have something that I don't have access to that I have to substitute for.
Nuts have much more than anti-nutrients and enzyme inhibitors. Some nuts have high amounts of other nutrients like Phil's brazil nut example with the selenium. I do soak them which negates most of those problems. I know the argument that our ancestors wouldn't have soaked them - but how do we know that!? Squirrels plant their nuts to have them grow a little before eating them - how do we know that our ancestors didn't do something similar? Besides, sometimes eating a little bit of something not good is acceptable if we need something else the food contains and perhaps can sometimes be even beneficial - like b17 for instance. In small amounts it can be quite beneficial.
Variety to me is more than just for my physical well-being. It is for my emotional and social well-being too - and for enjoyment of my food. I think those things are important as well.
If I don't feel like something is hurting or distracting from my vibrancy or health I like to keep my options open. Then again - my digestive fire is pretty good, I'm pretty healthy and plant foods seem to agree with me generally. I'm far from saying that nuts are good for everyone. I'm just suggesting that discounting them outright for everyone might do the raw paleo diet a disservice. Our ancestors ate nuts and seeds. Some of us feel just fine eating some. Why categorically say that they are unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten - let alone compare them to feces?
You know, if feces tasted as good as pistachios do -- I might think of eating it. -d
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can you guys wrap your heads around the idea that paleolithic diets were not completely ideal, and perhaps their health wasnt either? but maybe more ideal was the way they lived their life in a more natural way, with less social and environmental stress and more time to enjoy simple pleasures? can you imagine that perhaps they ate sub optimal foods like nuts every once in a while simply to feel full and to have any kind of nutrients? all of this arguing is just as theoretical as anything, and what does it matter?......we will never know, and even with science breaking down every molecule of foods and labs telling us ever reaction in our body, these are all just piece and parts of a puzzle, nothing about this is concrete...maybe it is our luxury now to find time to sort through data that helps to validate our own best guess of what is more paleo or not and also more in accordance to how we choose nourish ourselves, but to me its like spinning tires or chasing ones own tail
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I have to disagree with you completely Jessica. I am curious why you think that their diets weren't ideal. That doesn't make sense since you're following a paleo diet, no? I think it's the other way around; their diets were almost perfect, but their environment was harsh and they suffered do to lack of technology. Just my humble opinion.
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Last night I had 4 eggs (whites and yolks), somewhat later tomatoes and vegetables and then... pine nuts! Most of it were delicious crops from my yards.
I think perfection doesn't belong to this world and our pre-fire ancestors tended somehow to do the best they could in accordance with their actual environment. They could not always, and probably seldom, find the exact foods that would have suited them best in a constantly evolving world.
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Last night I had 4 eggs (whites and yolks), somewhat later tomatoes and vegetables and then... pine nuts! Most of it were delicious crops from my yards.
I have many pine-trees in my garden, but I only got pine-cones falling. Where are those pine-nuts?
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I have many pine-trees in my garden, but I only got pine-cones falling. Where are those pine-nuts?
Inside? 8)
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Inside the cones between the wooden things. But last year there were no pinyon pine cones here and I hope there will be some this year. The ones I have are from 2010 and still good, fresh. I'm at 220 m elevation only, very much lower than Wikipedia states.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/StonePine.jpg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut)
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Do pine nuts last a long time after falling? Or do they get eaten up quickly despite being in the cone?
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I agree that nut/fruit fats are probably not as optimal as animal fats, but you're painting an excessively negative picture that isn't supported by the evidence.
Hi PP,
I see a lot of evidence that high amounts of w6 rich plant fats are detrimental to our health. And you don't convince me that nuts give us any important nutrient that we can't get from animal food and vegetables. My own experience is that all plant fats with the exception of fresh raw coconut milk are very bad for my body, brain and cognitive function. Beside this, since 1999 I have seen a lot of other rawfoodists who tried a diet HIGH in plant fats after they realized that high carb in the form of high fruit consumption damages their bodies in the long-run and makes them aging faster than any other diet. Not one of them was successful, really. They all failed miserably, including myself. Some of them became very depressive and got very concrete suicidal thoughts. I forced one of my friends, who was very desperated, to eat a lot of fresh seafood (high in w3 and dha) everyday and to throw away all plant fats. After some days he felt much better, more vital and optimistic. It's no joke. Again, I'm not talking about a handful of nuts every now and then. It's the same with one cigarette every now and then.
More than small amounts of nuts cause digestive trouble in most people. Seldom can anyone eat more than 100 grams of nuts per day without getting steatorrhea in the next days. That is only one of many arguments against nuts. In my view it's already enough to classify them as "undesireable". But no question, some nuts are very tasty. So many things are tasty, right?
I know that some bushmen eat nuts. They do this out of desperation. They are living in extreme scarcity, not seldom in very aride zones. No rainfall, no green pastures, no animal fats. And these nut eating bushmen are everything else than posterboys for human health, longevity or inventiveness. Furthermore they most often cook the nuts to make them more digestible. Cooking PUFAs is definetely a very bad idea, regarding optimal health. People in countries like Nigeria in which w6 rich palm oil is the major source of fat in human nutrition have the lowest life expectancy in the world. Coincidence? Perhaps. Masai tribesmen who live on animal fats are much taller, stronger and most probably much more intelligent than their plant fat eating colleagues.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that a high omega 6 consumption and the resulting imbalances cause a huge number of human illnesses. This is not the case in apes and squirrels. Their brains, for example, are not dependant on a high w3 fatty acid supply. For us, seafood, fats and organs from wild and/or grassfed animals are really brain boosters, nuts are not. I have no doubt that the nuts in your health food store are as unhealthy as all other health foods like tofu, agave nectar and rice crackers.
Löwenherz
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can you guys wrap your heads around the idea that paleolithic diets were not completely ideal, and perhaps their health wasnt either? but maybe more ideal was the way they lived their life in a more natural way, with less social and environmental stress and more time to enjoy simple pleasures? can you imagine that perhaps they ate sub optimal foods like nuts every once in a while simply to feel full and to have any kind of nutrients? all of this arguing is just as theoretical as anything, and what does it matter?......we will never know, and even with science breaking down every molecule of foods and labs telling us ever reaction in our body, these are all just piece and parts of a puzzle, nothing about this is concrete...maybe it is our luxury now to find time to sort through data that helps to validate our own best guess of what is more paleo or not and also more in accordance to how we choose nourish ourselves, but to me its like spinning tires or chasing ones own tail
I fully agree with you, Jessica. ;)
Löwenherz
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Do pine nuts last a long time after falling? Or do they get eaten up quickly despite being in the cone?
They quickly mutate into aggressive aliens and kill all your neighbours in a bloody slaughter party before they construct a spaceship out of the remaining skulls to fly back to their mothership.
I don't know why they do this. I guess it's the high w6 and high PUFA content.
Löwenherz
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I fully agree with you, Jessica. ;)
Löwenherz
So, for once we agree! :)
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I must be the alien! ;)
I wonder Lowenhertz if you are taking an entire extreme diet and just blaming the nuts!
I eat animal fat and fatty seafood and still - my body wants and likes soaked nuts and avocados. It's not that they not only don't do me any harm - but they do me a lot of good - as far as I can tell.
I do believe that so many people are attracted to these extreme diets (yes, including raw paleo as well as raw vegan) because they are already sick. I seem to be one of the only people here that got interested in raw foods so many decades ago because of curiosity and logic rather than because I felt I had to do something to gain back base-line health.
So many assumptions about why native peoples eat nuts and seeds. How can anyone say that it is only because they can't find anything else? Talk about adapting your "facts" to fit your ideas!
How do you know Jessica that the nuts were sub - optimal for them?
Tyler - not all pine trees make pine nuts and some are so small you would not be able to gather them. It's only particular kinds that give us the delicious pine nuts.
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How do you know Jessica that the nuts were sub - optimal for them?
Oh yes, sorry I disagree with Jessica on this point even if I agree in the general sense with most of her post.
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dorothy i was only giving an example..! i dont know nuts about nuts! except that squirrels and little worms tend to eat up pinon nuts as quickly as they hit the ground and that, besides commercial versions, i havent found many trees healthy enough where i have lived to create large seeds that were worth the work of harvesting
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I am a nut. Someone eat me. :)
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Why would our paleo ancestors soak nuts before they ate them? The idea seems hilarious to me. I never understood the whole soaking thing myself. I don't think it is necessary.
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I don't soak them... The other instinctos I know don't soak them neither.
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Why would our paleo ancestors soak nuts before they ate them? The idea seems hilarious to me. I never understood the whole soaking thing myself. I don't think it is necessary.
i know that acorns are soaked to release the tannins, which is a substance that was used to tan a hide, and are also unpalatably acrid and also unhealthy at high levels......and the meat of the acorn can then be used to make a flour which can be roasted, baked with etc...
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In paleo times they might have buried stores of them for a time like squirrels do. The enzyme inhibitors are released along with a lot of the antinutrients when a seed starts to grow. Having seeds in a dry environment is not natural - the dew in the morning often is enough to start a seed to sprout. I soak them instead of going through the trouble of planting them and digging them up. I have adapted so many paleo type things to my modern way of life in a similar way.
If you make high meat you don't necessarily go and hang it in a tree right or bury it right?
That being said - it's not really my reason. It is that when I soak them they make me feel better than eating them raw. I also like to have the largest variety of foods available to me to choose from - partly because I know that my diet is could never be as good as my ancestors were. I can't get whole fresh animals and their organs, the soil is depleted and poisoned, the air is poisoned and hybridization of both plants and animals makes my choices far inferior and maybe if I'm lucky I'm living longer than they did so might have other needs. So, hopefully, with lots of choices I can make up for the pitfalls a bit. I feel like nuts can do that for me somewhat - especially with hard to get nutrients. I also (living in this environment) might need more of something than my ancestors did for balance. My diet is already so incredibly narrow that I wouldn't want to remove from it that doesn't seem to do me any harm - just to maybe help to cover my bases.
I'm certainly not saying that nuts would be good for everyone - especially those that have allergies or sensitivities to them or those with a weak digestive system - but I wouldn't count them out if you soak them, they taste good and they make you feel good! I think they are a good source of lots of minerals and important nutrients that can be hard to get otherwise for me.
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That was cute - Jessica doesn't know nuts about nuts!
Your general point is well-taken.
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Native Americans in my part of the country btw would take acorns, put them in sacks and into running streams in order to wash away the tannins before using. If you want to use acorns without a river or stream like the natives then you have to boil the hell out of them over and over.
I bet most native cultures figured out similar ways to handle seeds/nuts to make them edible and healthful.
One native pecan tree here can make for massive feasting where the animals native to the area wouldn't even be able to eat them all - much like the acorns - they are extremely plentiful.
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It doesn't matter what kind of oil, what brand, flesh or pit, virgin or not IF it is old/rancid. The MOST important thing about oil in general - but especially olive oil in particular - is the HARVEST DATE....not the press date because the olives could be around a half a year or a year before being pressed so that the oil is rancid while being made!
Why is the harvest date the most important? It's well known when olives are harvested, late autumn to early winter, you don't need some label to tell you that. Why would olives sit around for half a year before getting pressed? I don't think they could even survive that long. Fruits will go bad pretty quickly even when well refrigerated/stored.
In detail how olive oil is made: How Olive Oil Is Made (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aieNV3V4b_s#)
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aLp - sometimes olives can be kept a full year before they are made into oil by poor manufacturers. It's just what happens. Yes, the fruit goes bad - but it is still pressed and makes bad oil. One of the worst problems is that they can be picked too early or too late too - when too late they are allowed to fall to the ground and then gathered.
It's really pretty easy to smell and taste when oil is good - the problem is finding the good oil to train your palate with. That's when you have to rely on things like harvest dates.
I'm trying to get across that all these bad experiences people have had with olive oil might not be wise to generalize to truly fresh oil. I feel terrible from every single oil available from every health food store and specialty store in this city and others, yet I feel wonderful from the good stuff.
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To the OP re plants and fibre interference with the digestion, this happened tome too after about 18 months being ZC/VLC. If you want to get the vitamins/minerals of the veg without the digestion drama, your best option is to make a green juice, you only need a cup or so every morning. Then build your tolerance gradually if you can, I am still struggling with it, my body can't digest veg/fruit and I get joints pain when I eat fresh fruits/veg, but managed to adapt to high protein/fat plants such as avocado or quinoa, in fact I have less trouble digesting white rice/potatoes than veg/fruit (which I only eat on very rare occasions at family invites, surprisingly starches do not cause me joints pain, but perhaps this is because I have them on very rare occasion)
I use Olive oil, I've been use it often recently, but I also use coconut oil. Mediterranean populations use olive oil as a main fat source, have done so for many generation.
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Are you in the Mediterranean Hotmail?
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For the last 20 years I've been living in London, but before that for the first 20 years of my life I lived in the Mediterranean (various countries) and I know they use olive oil heavily.
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Yes, it's a big part of the "Mediteranean Diet" that is so popular here. I bet getting good fresh olive oil would be easy there. Can you get good oil in London?