the simplest way to answer this without getting into ethics or really complex biochemical processes or human physiology is just to observe the natural food chain.

One example is the Myrmecophaga tridactyla (Giant Anteater)

The anteater consumes up to 30,000 ants and termites a day. Every one of those bugs in turn probably breaks down lots of cellulose and earth fiber (or from other insects and greasy decayed matter from ants) which is completely impossible for it to eat. It also eats beetles, insect larvae; and occasionally some fruit and that is its diet. It fulfills it's need for water by licking wet vegetation but abstains from actually eating any leaves.

They also eat pebbles and dirt to help break down their food because they don't have teeth (again a reason why it needs ants that break down other omni food), so in a way this doesn't rule out your idea of using processing to help break down your foods. The idea that the lowest end of nutrition spectrum is the highest and the most efficient fuel for all species contradicts pretty much all of nature even when it looks good on paper for humans. I'm all for some tampering with nature in a modern context but also your point about animals adding nothing to nutrition is really hyperbolic, I mean I'm sure you know that at the very least the macronutrient ratios of the food shift dramatically, and there are plenty of known micro-nutrients say: CLA which are incredibly rare or absent in most plant foods. Also you are factually wrong in that likely little of the ingredients you are using in a vitamix are suitable food for most wild or pastured animals (even those that are indisputably herbivores or omnivores) so that is also something to think about. GS was probably just saying that it made more sense for the chicken to eat the hemp (being seed eaters) and processing the food in the same way you are criticizing, not that hemp fed omega eggs were ideal.

Another example would be a polar bear. Would you want to spend every second of your day in deep frozen ocean water in attempt to eat enough plankton to fill your stomach, or will you consume a whale that gets too close to the ice that eats up to 5000 lbs a day? Its also noted that some types of plankton are similar to plants in that they absorb sun energy as food, but this isn't the kind that whales eat and it certainly wouldn't be food for the polar bear.

i am all for concentrating nutrients.  to me something like liver does accomplish that - it is a concentrated source of essential nutrients.

so is whey protein, so are chia or hemp seeds.

but lard is not.  lard is a concentrated source of calories, not nutrition to me.

what i am against is this blind religious belief that animal food is ALWAYS superior to all other forms of food ( plant AND supplements ).  this is not a reflection of reality - but a reflection of the desire of people for SIMPLICITY.  people prefer simple explanations to correct ones, and i am fighting that

somehow our ancestors were smarter than you people.  they would kill their enemy, eat his heart and drink his blood.  they would not focus on his fat.  why is it that they could think straight and you can not ?  they ate his heart because they wanted a stronger heart.  they drank his blood because they realized that blood is what gives life.  but they were not particularly obsessed with his fat because they didn't really want to be fat all that bad.

it appears that the ONLY logic behind the advise to eat more fat tissue is a childish rebellion against the conventional advice to avoid it.  can't we do better than that?  just because conventional diet is wrong doesn't mean that the opposite of it is right.  reality is not 1-dimensional.

High fat, low carb has helped my 5 year old girl control her tooth decays.

my grandma had her first tooth filling at age 33.  my friend is 30 years old and never had one, and he doesn't even brush his teeth.

i don't understand what is such a big deal about controlling tooth decay in a 5 year old.

Nutrients can be essential or nonessential.  Essential nutrients are ones that cannot be manufactured by the body and must come from diet.

We know that you are what you eat, and this is the argument for eating animals.  We are animals therefore the argument goes we should eat animals as we are are going to be made out of them.  If we were to eat grass we would become grass - and if you look at raw vegans that's exactly what they look like - like leaves.

Now here is the problem.  Since we are the animals we eat, and they are us, it follows that whatever nutrients are essential to us are also essential to them - that is they can not manufacture them either.  They can't manufacture the nutrients that we need and the nutrients that we eat them for !  

Instead ALL of the essential nutrients in those animals we eat have come form PLANTS.  The animals have only acted as CONTAINERS for them.  They have added NOTHING to the nutrition in the plants they consumed that our own bodies could not manufacture.

And now we look for grass fed beef and omega 3 eggs - why ?  If we already know precisely WHAT plants the animals must be fed in order to absorb the nutrients that we need in them - WHY NOT EAT THOSE PLANTS DIRECTLY ?

Goodsamaritan explained to me that i should buy only Omega 3 eggs because they are made by hens who were fed flax seeds.  That's great.  But i can just drink flax seed oil directly.

Why is it acceptable to use animals to process and package the nutrients in plants but not acceptable to use a Vita-Mix to do the same ?

With beef or eggs i have to take the farmer's word for what went into that animal.  With a Vita-Mix i put the ingredients in MYSELF.

i have another even more trollish question in mind.  i'm gonna start a different thread about it

stevia "tasted bad", because i was adapted to white sugar "tasting good".

you have a point there.  when i used to have sodium salt ( table salt ) i thought potassium salt tasted bad.  but in reality i was just used to the taste of sodium salt.  now i use Morton Lite salt ( which is a 50/50 mix ) and i think it tastes perfect.

i might look into honey again. 

Too much protein stresses the organs

no doubt too much is no good.  ronnie coleman i think for example used to have 600 grams of protein per day.



is that unhealthy ?  yes.  but you would need to eat 6 pounds of lean raw meat per day to get that much.

i think you should eat various animal bodyparts in the same proportions in which they actually occur in the animal.  there is no need to emphasize either lean parts or fatty parts IMO.

why all this obsession with fat ?  the body is mostly protein - both ours and that of the animals we eat.  so why would 40% protein be too high ?

i think if there is anything too high in most people's diets its the total calories.

Shalom,

I just started researching the paleolithic diet (from researching high meat).
Most if it jives with me really well; even though the information against grains and potatoes is really surprising.

I was wondering if I would still be able to eat wheat bread that I would make myself, or would it interfere with the cycle that
the diet would engage in?

Once your body adapts to the raw/high meat and absence of grains, is it arbitrary to include such things sparingly?

screw wheat, corn, soy, rice, beans and all that garbage.

have you EVER heard of anybody getting healthier after adding or increasing any of those in the diet ?

use your brain ...

try this: 3 raw egg yolks from pastured and fertilized chickens (farms or farmers markets), some ground up cacao beans or nibs, and then just a bit of some protein powder, water or coconut milk, and a sweetener. make it simple.

how about - egg yolks, honey and

http://www.cookingfor.us/catalog/images/KitchenAid%20KHM9PWH%209-Speed%20Hand%20Mixer.jpg

?

problem is i would not eat honey - it's not conductive towards my weight loss goals.  i am predisposed towards weight gain.  when i eliminated all sugars from my diet it was the first time i actually started losing weight without deliberately starving myself.

i tried stevia once and found it to be more or a flavoring than a sweetener.  if stevia works for your taste buts - by all means.

Of course, but what I'm saying is you seem to be just shifting within the same paradigm. In a sense this is like your average inactive person, thinking if they spend all their time on a treadmill and avoiding high fat snacks that they will look younger and feel more energetic. Just a bit wishful especially when people cross over into some kind of illness of injury. There are going to have to be other diet and lifestyle factors and rest involved for any serious recovery. You might associate your problems with past types of activity, and thats fine, no one knows better than you on that I suppose, but just shifting your activity is not (likely) going to be the panacea to your problems. So in short, it makes way more sense to just halt most (or all) activity and rest, eat healthful food ( ditch all the performance related 'food) and try to heal your injuries and health issues, don't punish yourself into some body-makeup that statistically has better health or whatever using the same tactics and chemicals and protein excess. That makes no sense and sounds alot like the gym-rats you speak of's wives. Plus, losing weight on raw is just plain easy, hell I could probably be satisfied on 1400 cals a day, I eat like its my friggen job.

i know you're right.  its a psychological problem for me.  i just see myself as an "athlete" in my own mind, and to me that means doing all those things - train, supplement etc.  it's hard to stay perfectly objective.  most people are driven to some extent by their own self-image. 

my self image is a product of all those years when i felt competitive with others going into a gym for a workout, which is probably from about age 15 to 25 or so.  that's why i am trying to tell you people not to get competitive in the gym, not think of a workout as a war ( like many do to psych themselves ), not make friends with other crazy folks who scream while lifting etc.  just try to maintain sanity.

I think you have me mistaken for somebody that has not been around lifting much. I know for a fact who is natural and who is not in my group, not only because of being friends in and outside of the gym, these same friends are competition in tested powerlifting divisions. Some also do not compete in tested divisions. I have a friend that is closing in on a legit 600lb raw competition bench, I would not believe it either until I knew him well and went to tested powerlifting meets with him. In the same group we have a guy who is 165lbs closing in on a 400lb touch and go bench.

I also know a lot of guys who are on gear who are nowhere near those strength levels. Point being, strong is relative, and you don't need to be on stuff to be strong. Strongest? yes, but its unfair to call somebody out on drugs because they have a 600lb deadlift--there are lots of guys who have hit 600+ deadlift without drugs.

edit: just to add, in groups of powerlifting--we all know who is on stuff and who isn't, its not a secret. Bodybuilding is totally different.

edit2: wanted to also add--you have a good point though, and I know your view to be true 99% of the time... some guys just wont admit it, especially bodybuilders and gym rats. They all want you to think they got to where they are naturally, and its rarely not a lie.

i was chronically overtrained.  i could have been much stronger if i knew about periodization etc.  also i was a bodybuilder, not a powerlifter although my training was somewhat powerlifter-like.

most my lifts were quite weak.  my squat was a nonexistent.  but i was quite strong on chin-ups, on shoulder press ( 140 lb dumbbells for 10 reps, or 150 lb dumbbells for 2 or 3 reps, my working weight was 130 ) and on bent over rows ( 5 plates per side for a few reps once, 4 plates was my working weight ).  i also did 7 plates on the icarian T-Bar machine for reps. 

so my lats were always my strongest point - they were also the first muscle i started training all the way back as a kid.  i was overweight as a kid in USSR and i was the ONLY overweight kid in my class.  most my classmates could do chin ups but i couldn't due to my weight.  i was attending a gym at age 11 or 12 where i would swim laps ( to lose weight ) and do pull downs so i could learn to do chin ups.  but swimming in itself works lats too, and later on i was on a high school swimming team.  so my lats got consistent training since age 11 or so while for example i did not start doing squats and deadlifts until age 18 or so ( my parents told me i would not grow up vertically if i did them as a kid ).  and in case of squats i stopped soon after i started because they were impinging some nerve in my neck.

as for shoulders - steroids help with that a lot.  my back strength was quite good before steroids, and remained decent after steroids as well.  my shoulder strength was 100% steroidal though.  it came and left with them. 

i don't remember the details of my routine but it was something like 2 - 3 hours a day 6 - 7 days a week with very long breaks between sets - like 5 minutes.  i would do sets of 5 - 6 reps and i would do about 3 sets per exercise.  i would train at about 90% of my max all the time.

also i did a lot of pyramids.  that is for example i would start with 60lb dumbbells, work up to 130 ones and then, work back down to 80 lb ones.  i would not go to failure until i would hit the highest weight i was going to do that day ( say 130 lbs ) but once i hit that weight i would go to failure on every set so to failure on 130, then to failure on 110, then to failure on 80 or so.

i really took overtraining to another level

but since i was always on 2 or 3 pills of ephedrine in the gym i didn't feel overtrained.

i did not do any cardio and very little ab work.  for abs i would do sit ups on an decline bench with either a 45 lb plate in front of me or a 10 or 25 lb plate behind the head.  i did not do many reps.  i did not believe in reps back then - i believed that growth comes from tension.

my highest one-arm pull down at 220 lbs actually came a few years AFTER quitting steroids when i have already lost half of the muscle.  i managed to increase my strength while losing muscle simply because by that time i understood overtraining. 

when on steroids i did not understand overtraining at all.  one time i had to spend a week in the hospital and it was driving me insane that i couldn't be in the gym.  as soon as they let me out i went straight to the gym and set personal records on everything i lifted that day.  i thought it was "strange" that my strength increased across the board after a week in bed under an IV.  of course that's what was SUPPOSED to happen, but i didn't know it then.

wouldn't it be nice if you could live twice and apply everything you learned in the first life to your second ?  i learned a lot about this sport over the years but i no longer have the health to try what i know on myself any more.

Raw Paleo is never about religious fanaticism, this board is about GETTING HEALTHY RESULTS.
A good number of us turned to raw paleo because we were sick on the "other" diets.

With your current resting blood pressure of 135 = this is a total disaster and one you have to solve quickly.

Whatever you are doing now is dangerous for your health given that blood pressure.

i'm 29 now and my blood pressure is like i said significantly lower than it was when i was 23.

there is zero reason to believe that my current diet caused my high blood pressure.

now when i developed this problem originally i was doing a lot of unhealthy things at the same time - steroids, stimulants, very large doses of protein, and extreme training.  which one did it ?  i don't know.  

i agree with you that protein could be a contributing factor, and as precautionary measure i will try to reduce it.

just stop talking about it.  my grandfather had high blood pressure and he never exercised and barely had any proteins in his diet.  his blood pressure was extremely high during his last few years ( going up to as much as 180 at times ) and in the end he died from something else altogether - prostate cancer.

ok it's time for my bike ride.

but.. what... The palaeolithic diet is not named after someone, it's not a thing someone came up with and sold. The palaeolithic diet is 100% right. Not that anyone of us is eating the palaeolithic diet, we're just improving our health by following its' principles... It is the based on the principles of evolution and adaptation, of nature. How can you even compare it to vegetarianism? There is no sense to say that our diet should be of grass... Our head is far from the ground, we have one stomach etc... It would seem that you do not understand what the Palaeolithic diet really is... Vegetarians like to come up with these new super-foods all the time at random, because none ever give them what they want... What is the reasoning behind Hemp and Chia seeds being beneficial to you? There is none... What is the reasoning behind the Palaeolithic diet? It is its own reasoning...

any religious fanatic can come up with ways to explain why his religion is true and other religions are evil and false.

and yet statistically agnostic people have highest IQ and religious people lowest ( regardless of religion ) while atheists are in the middle.

i prefer to stay agnostic on this issue.  you *may* be right.  you could also be wrong.

think of how many things the humanity was able to improve since paleo days - roads, cars, houses, computers.  yes it is true that modern diet is utter SH1T compared to paleo diet - there is no argument about that.  but that doesn't mean that all of our knowledge and technology COULD NOT be used to IMPROVE UPON the paleo diet.

yes the humans evolved to conform their bodies to the paleo diet, but the paleo diet did not evolve to conform to the human body !  today we have the option to do that - to "evolve" our diet to match our bodies needs.  unfortunately we don't know what our needs are that's why all modern diets fail.  but that only proves that we don't know anything - it doesn't *prove* that we know paleo is ideal.

get it ?

paleo is not the ultimate destination - it is the logical starting point.  you start with a paleo diet because quite frankly there is nowhere else to logically start.  i have no doubt that paleo can be improved upon.  i just don't know HOW to do it.  i also know that in the past all attempts to improve our diets have made it worse.  but as Morpheus said to Neo "where others have failed you will succeed" HAHAHAHA ! ! !