Yolk, Beef, & Salmon Diet, does this sound like a good idea?

[goodsamaritan]

Why would panacea ignore his carb-craving symptom, which is the early-warning sign of inflammation that leads to adult-onset diabetes? What kind of "enjoyment" do you imagine one gets from intense carb-cravings, where you know that you just ate so that your stomach is full, but you are still ravenously hungry?

Note I said listen to "some" ... instincts... like taste.

Sure there is that logic you mention.  I never meant to sway him into eating carbs.

There is a balance somewhere regarding taste.

For example, he has no attraction to eggs, but views eggs as a logical choice... so at least go find eggs that TASTE good.

If he eats beef... go and find beef that TASTES good.

If he eats fish... go and find fish that TASTES good.

[eveheart]

Note I said listen to "some" ... instincts... like taste.
Sure there is that logic you mention.
There is a balance somewhere.
For example, he has no attraction to eggs, but views eggs as a logical choice... so at least go find eggs that TASTE good.
If he eats beef... go and find beef that TASTES good.
If he eats fish... go and find fish that TASTES good.

It's logical to start somewhere and make adjustments later. He is starting from two givens: his macro-nutrient balance plus food availability. His favorite "tastes" will develop later, IF he finds that taste is important. OR, he might think more along the lines of "if I can get through the day without a carb crash, taste doesn't matter at all." I do that often.

You want him to anticipate all future adjustments before he starts; there is NO logic in that. I remember when our local slaughterhouse was closed in a food-quality scandal, and I couldn't find good beef fat. I lived on pasteurized, grass fed butter for a few weeks and ate way too much protein while I scrambled to find other good animal-fat sources.

He is posting in the right topic. Perhaps he is looking for supportive advice within the realm of a low-carb approach. I started out with a generally raw approach, which cut out carbs from grains and legumes and experienced relief from carb cravings. Then, as I broadened my paleo food choices to some of the fruits and nuts mentioned by instincto eaters, I triggered binge-eating all over again. It is possible to eat instincto within low-carb, but you can't just wolf down a banana because of its attractive aroma, because carb-cravings will completely mask signals of satiety. There is no way to tell another person what will work for that person until he tries it. I eat neither eggs nor ground beef, but I can support his efforts intelligently.

[goodsamaritan]

He he, calm down.  "Instincto" seems to be a trigger word for you meaning CARBS.

I meant no such thing.

I know those carb crashes myself... sucks... so terrible.  I used to get that in the past. 

My experience with looking for raw paleo fish, red meat and eggs were just that... some sources tasted terrible, some blah, and some amazing.

So if panacea is just starting out on raw paleo, seems going for ratios is a good start... and then later on go find quality food... usually quality food comes with great taste (not saying carbs).  Where I learned the more naturally fed or more wild the animal, it usually tastes better.

[jessica]

Panacea, if possible, try to find a better source of eggs.  Walmart "cage free" "organic" eggs are still really low quality nutrition compared to real farm raised eggs.  Those birds have poor nutrition and are given supplemental and sometimes more toxic forms of vitamins, protiens and fats and are also live a sun deficient lifestyle both through environment and diet.   They are also often improperly handled.  If you are going to eat eggs at quanity and have a limited diet you need to make sure everything is high quality, you may end up eating less and spending less on high quality than you would on poor quality foods.  Also I would advice that if you are eatin salmon but whole wild caught salmon and eat the bones and skin in the form of the gelatinous broth you can brew by stewing them at low temps.  There is a huge amount if fat just under thr skinthat is always trimmed when you buy fillets.  Also add in some seaweed. 

[eveheart]

"Instincto" seems to be a trigger word for you meaning CARBS.

I don't know what your comment means.

Instincto refers to instinctotherapie, which means letting the taste and smell of unprocessed foods guide you to the foods that your body needs in the moment. It's a great way to eat. However, inflammation in the body can mimic a normal desire for foods that are inflammatory to an individual. If the inflaming foods are removed, instincto works perfectly.

If a person feels badly after eating a certain food, that food should be avoided, even if taste and smell are appealing. Many people react that way to carbs, and that has nothing to do with trigger words, whatever those are. 

[sabertooth]

I agree with Jessica, find a better source.

Walmart, organic or not, should be avoided. Put forth some effort to locate local truly free range sources.

Though I will confess that a few years back when I would run out of fat I have on a few occasions bought a pack of beef ribs from Walmart and the taste wasn't that bad...its a crap shoot as far as knowing where it comes from and what exactly is in it...Ive heard much of Walmart beef comes from south america....some of it may come from newly cleared rain forest pastures and be perfectly fine, but its unknown how much of it comes from ecologically sound ranching practices.

If you want to eat more fatty beef you may want to try out some ribs, they are usually cheap and contain a high portion of fat. You could also call around local butcher shops and ask about fat trimmings.

Also try to go in for a variety of wild sea foods so you can develop a taste for what your body needs. Mackerel is an inexpensive and tasty alternative for example.

[Iguana]

I agree with Jessica, find a better source.

Me too. It's almost impossible to find eggs properly fulfilling our requirements. They always give some sort of heated food or other industrials supplements to the fowls. That's why I had to set my own poultry and why my raw paleo friends are doing the same. A lot of work and expenses for a few eggs. Eggs from wild birds could be alright if the birds live in a not too polluted environment... hard to find though!   

I have on a few occasions bought a pack of beef ribs from Walmart and the taste wasn't that bad...i

Can't tell by the taste. Heated grain and junk fed beef may very well taste great.

BTW, "instincto" is not about cravings. We don't rely on cravings, but on smell and taste of foods which we try to make sure beforehand that they are alright. 

[eveheart]

BTW, "instincto" is not about cravings. We don't rely on cravings, but on smell and taste of foods which we try to make sure beforehand that they are alright. 

You are right, instincto is not "about" cravings at all. However, the inflammatory reaction to eating carbs, which is often referred to as carb-cravings, cannot be detected by agreeable taste or smell. I think that carb-cravings are a sign of illness that may later manifest as a named disease. Once that response is identified, I think it is wise to engineer meals to prevent it. Engineered meals sometimes look like what panacea proposes.

[Iguana]

Aren't cravings induced by memories of previous pleasures? Somehow like an alcoholic or a drug addict is craving to drink alcoholic beverages or taking the drug again after weaning. We know that processed and neolithic foods are addictive, so it must be analogous.

Engineering meals supposes that we know it all and that we can master mother nature! That way of thinking has led humanity on the brink of disaster.   

[eveheart]

Aren't cravings induced by memories of previous pleasures? Somehow like an alcoholic or a drug addict is craving to drink alcoholic beverages or taking the drug again after weaning. We know that processed and neolithic foods are addictive, so it must be analogous.

No! I'm sure that desire for pleasure could be the cause for some carb cravings, but I'd only investigate that cause after I had ruled out problems with carb metabolism.

In my case, I was producing plenty of insulin, however metabolic problems prevented me from utilizing blood sugar for energy at the cellular level via cellular respiration. Therefore, despite having eating sufficient food from a caloric standpoint, I was ravenously hungry as if I had not eaten at all. The cycle often leads to obesity, because the excess insulin allows the body to store the excess blood sugar as body fat. Clinical symptoms didn't start for me until I was in my mid-forties, but the cravings were there all along and got worse as time passed.

There were no memories of previous pleasures, unless you call symptoms like unrelenting hunger, drowsiness, and malaise pleasurable. Imagine yourself counseling a person with ravenous cravings due to metabolic problems, and you discount the plausible reasons for their symptoms and liken them to an addict! You would be doing nothing to help their health, and you would be adding shame to their perplexity.

If cellular respiration is faulty (called insulin resistance), low-carb eating allows the cellular energy short-circuit to be alleviated because, in the absence of abundant blood sugar, cellular fermentation occurs, allowing the cells to use fats for energy instead of sugars. The switch from cellular respiration (glucose as energy) and cellular fermentation (lipids as energy) happens naturally. The by-product of cellular fermentation is ketones, so this style of eating is often referred to as a ketogenic diet.

Since fat-burning is one of the body's normal energy alternatives, ketogenic eating does not go against Mother Nature. Counting protein, fat, and carb intakes is only needed until one gets used to fixing up low-carb meals. We are engineering the meal, not the food. For example, blood tests have shown me that I can eat up to 10g of carbs at one meal without getting lingering blood sugar spikes, so I eat up to that limit or less per meal. Current blood tests show that I have normal A1C and blood glucose levels, so I can say I reversed diabetes by eating this way. The original poster, panacea, reported no diabetes or obesity, but I applaud him for responding to the first symptom (carb craving) rather than wait until he is older and has many symptoms.

I can't address the causes of addiction to substances like alcohol and drugs, but I'm sure the addiction to each has a biochemical component; if it were possible to instantly shut off the faulty biochemistry, the addiction would disappear in that instant. With dietary carb-cravings, low-carb eating instantly fixes the biochemical component using a normal metabolic pathway. Whatever the downside of staying in ketosis, the upside wins.

[panacea]

I don't trust what tastes "good" because junk foods like fried fries tasted great, so do healthier foods like scrambled eggs, yet raw egg yolks don't taste good and are basically the same food as scrambled eggs, therefore my "tastes good" can't be trusted, at least not yet. I do however trust my taste/smell if something tastes or smells "off" such as being rancid, bitter when it shouldn't be, and stuff like that.

I know I feel good eating yolks, beef, and salmon from brief experiments, maybe it's not as good as it can get, but it's in the right direction it seems. There is a second part to cravings besides just carbs. Even on a ketogenic diet (less than 30 carbs a day) I crave cooked food, preferably hot, and most importantly familiar food (raw beef/yolks/salmon is not familiar for me yet). I'm confident that if I can keep with the diet I planned in this thread for as little as a month I'd be "over the hill" on that craving-battle, either by becoming accustomed to the foods via habit or my body gets used to it chemically.

I've decided that if the quantity of yolks bothers me at all down the experimental road, the next thing to try is increase the quantity of raw beef and mix it with raw beef fat to get the grind closer to 70/30 manually (suet or regular beef fat), and decrease the yolks to about 12 a day. Does anyone know where the fat in 80/20, 90/10, and 70/30 grinds of ground beef comes from? Is it from fat on other parts of the animal mixed into the lean meat, or is the fat usually just nearby? I'm concerned that not all fat on the animal is equal (because I've read animals store a lot of accumulated fat-soluble toxins depending on the location of the fat).

[eveheart]

Does anyone know where the fat in 80/20, 90/10, and 70/30 grinds of ground beef comes from? Is it from fat on other parts of the animal mixed into the lean meat, or is the fat usually just nearby? I'm concerned that not all fat on the animal is equal (because I've read animals store a lot of accumulated fat-soluble toxins depending on the location of the fat).

Here in California, most beef is "sent out" to be slaughtered and butchered in FDA facilities, and this includes the major grassfed beef ranches as well as those raising bison. That means that the facility prepares the wholesale cuts and often the individual steaks and roasts and the mix for the various grinds. The fat source is from the trimmings at that processing plant.

If you buy your grind from a in-house butcher, you can ask what they put in the grinder.

Ask around in your area and you'll find out where the beef is coming from. You can find ranches at eatwild.com and ask them about things like that. I wouldn't be too fussy as long as the beef is 100% grassfed. I don't even worry about an organic certification, since natural pasture doesn't typically need to be sprayed with chemicals, and routine antibiotics are not needed when ruminants eat pasture.

BTW, I eat mostly lamb and goat - I can get meat from the actual ranch where it is raised and slaughtered - I can follow "my" animal from the hoof to the hook, and the whole animal fits in the trunk of my car!

[Iguana]

I don't trust what tastes "good" because junk foods like fried fries tasted great, so do healthier foods like scrambled eggs, yet raw egg yolks don't taste good and are basically the same food as scrambled eggs,

Of course! This is the very basic and essential fact that our instinct (as the one of every animal) is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff — anything new* that hasn't been available in nature during the millions years of our lineage's evolution!

*10 000 years is a very short time compared to several millions years of evolution. 

[TylerDurden]

Grains, dairy and cooked foods contain opioids which affect the brain and cause addiction. In actual fact, genuine taste is absent in cooked foods, which is why people need to smother their cooked foods with sauces in order to give them some taste. There is a huge difference in taste between raw meat from intensively-farmed animals and raw, grassfed meats, and raw wild game, the latter being the best in taste.

[Iguana]

True enough!
http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm
http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html

[panacea]

Sorry I don't buy it, if our instinct is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff, then why does my taste tell me when I eat raw grassfed beef, egg yolks, or salmon, that it isn't delicious? That isn't processed, mixed, or heated stuff. Basically, eating what I evolved to eat doesn't give me any good signals yet, and there are no direct "processed, mixed, heated stuff" interfering with my taste buds at that time.

The truth must be that it's the brain, familiarity most of all of taste, texture, temperature of food, consistency, flavor, etc that tells us what is good or not at that moment. Kids in other countries treat raw live caught tarantulas as a delicacy, and when given the option would prefer that type of food over McDonalds (they did a test of this in their school) that is a behavioral/cultural adaptation, not an evolutionary one. In the US kids would prefer McDonalds over tarantulas, etc. Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.

[Iguana]

Sorry I don't buy it, if our instinct is fooled by processed, mixed, heated stuff, then why does my taste tell me when I eat raw grassfed beef, egg yolks, or salmon, that it isn't delicious? That isn't processed, mixed, or heated stuff. Basically, eating what I evolved to eat doesn't give me any good signals yet, and there are no direct "processed, mixed, heated stuff" interfering with my taste buds at that time.

Because you're in a state of overload in some nutrients contained in these raw foods! Thus, you abut directly on the instinctive stop signals. Cease completely to eat cooked, processed, mixed foods and in a few days most raw foods will become attractive and delicious to you, according to your current needs. It may not be immediately meat, eggs or salmon but something else. 

The truth must be that it's the brain, familiarity most of all of taste, texture, temperature of food, consistency, flavor, etc that tells us what is good or not at that moment. Kids in other countries treat raw live caught tarantulas as a delicacy, and when given the option would prefer that type of food over McDonalds (they did a test of this in their school) that is a behavioral/cultural adaptation, not an evolutionary one. In the US kids would prefer McDonalds over tarantulas, etc. Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.

There's some truth in what you wrote, but the examples you give are rather exceptions than generalities. In general, animals and humans fall into the cooked food, get in overload and are no longer able to eat most foods raw. That's certainly why cooking habits became generalized and aren't reversible — unless we understand this phenomenon.       

[eveheart]

Grains, dairy and cooked foods contain opioids which affect the brain and cause addiction.

TD, I do not intend to debunk your opioid warnings, but were talking about another specific factor here: glucose utilization at the cellular level. I don't see the point in lumping all cravings-triggers into one "eat raw!" solution. Avoiding foods that produce an opioid effect is another issue entirely.

[TylerDurden]

It took me c. 3 weeks before I liked the taste of raw grassfed meats. I found the taste of raw grassfed organ-meats and raw wild game too rich at first but soon started to prefer their taste after some months of going RVAF. In my 20s,  before I went raw vegan, fruitarian and then rawpalaeo, I found I no longer liked the taste of cooked foods  but had to eat them anyway for sustenance.

[eveheart]

True enough!
http://www.nutramed.com/eatingdisorders/addictivefoods.htm
http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.html

Iguana, that "trigger-food avoidance" approach to eating disorder treatment has less than a 2% success rate when used alone, although it is utilized well in treating other health issues.

[panacea]

@Iguana
Again I don't agree with you, more foods will become attractive the longer you abstain from food no matter what the foods are. If you go starving for long enough, your own body parts or the human bodies of others start to look tasty. That is definitely based on instinct (to survive) but it doesn't really tell you what are the optimum foods. Simply making yourself more hungry so you can stomach new foods (healthier ones) is a sound strategy, but you have to intellectually know which foods are healthier using your brain, not sense of taste/smell, until your body is familiar with it and associates certain tastes/smells with not being a danger, and making you feel energetic. That is very hard to do to isolate what foods are good unless you only eat one thing at a time, or know before hand which foods are best using your intellect. Also, eating one food at a time will most likely cause nutritional deficiencies which increase hunger, and even increase hunger for subpar foods to try and compensate. In short, I don't put much stock in "instinct" because the environment around us is completely full of non-evolutionary stimuli. We are in a new "jungle" of food with an outdated taste navigation system that can never catch up without intellect filling the gaps.

[eveheart]

Panacea, iguana is explaining a narrower use of the word "instinct" as it is used in instinctotherapie, which teaches a mindful application of taste and smell used to guide a person to select foods to eat at any given time by the taste and smell signals, much in the same way as a pastured cow selects each legume or grass plant that it eats from among the variety of plants in the pasture. If this method is used to guide food intake, the food must be unprocessed, unseasoned, etc., so that the signals of flavor and odor are not altered. There is other information about this approach elsewhere in this forum, but it has no direct application to designing a low-carb diet.

If you do decide to learn instinctotherapie, you can use it with a low-carb diet. For example, since I eliminated the whole range of sweet-tasting foods, I have used instinctotherapie to learn to identify a signal that tells me to stop eating a sugar-y food - it's an immediate signal that feels like I just ate a big bite of fiberglass insulation and there's a tightness at the base of my tongue that prevents me from swallowing.

[panacea]

Oh, in that case, humans do the same thing with fruits and other plant foods that can be unripe, ripe, or rotten.
But with animal foods they are basically always clearly "ready to eat" in the wild unless there is obvious evidence, such as flies and insects devouring the rotting flesh (plus the smell is unmistakable and you don't have to get close to tell), so while I can see the merit of taste/smell in distinguishing if something is ripe/unripe/rotten/ready to eat, how in the world is it supposed to tell you what you are supposed to eat much less what is optimum to eat at any given time?

Cease completely to eat cooked, processed, mixed foods and in a few days most raw foods will become attractive and delicious to you, according to your current needs. It may not be immediately meat, eggs or salmon but something else. 

Seems like he was saying "instincto" tells you what nutrients you need based on what taste/smells good. In my experience I can tell if I need a protein-rich meal or a fat-rich meal or both simply by what I crave, when all food is locked in a fridge or freezer and I can't taste or smell it.

[Iguana]

Everywhere you go, people prefer what they are used to, in the forms they are used to, since taste is largely subjective to what you're used to.

Yes, in a large part and that's why we need some training (preferably with others, experienced ones) to get rid of our preconceived ideas and habits and discover new foods that others are appreciating but which we would never had thought could be attractive and tasty.

Seems like he was saying "instincto" tells you what nutrients you need based on what taste/smells good. In my experience I can tell if I need a protein-rich meal or a fat-rich meal or both simply by what I crave, when all food is locked in a fridge or freezer and I can't taste or smell it.

You can tell, but you can be wrong since cravings are based on memory and your current needs may differ of those of yesterday. What was tasty yesterday (or more likely a month or a year ago) may not be tasty for you now. We are not in a steady state, everything changes.

… so while I can see the merit of taste/smell in distinguishing if something is ripe/unripe/rotten/ready to eat, how in the world is it supposed to tell you what you are supposed to eat much less what is optimum to eat at any given time?

How do think wild animals know what they are supposed to eat and in which amount?

 

... but you have to intellectually know which foods are healthier using your brain, not sense of taste/smell, until your body is familiar with it and associates certain tastes/smells with not being a danger, and making you feel energetic. That is very hard to do to isolate what foods are good unless you only eat one thing at a time, or know before hand which foods are best using your intellect.

Of course, we eat one thing at a time since we don't mix them. But this doesn't prevent us to eat more than on food in a meal, one after the other. Anyway, even if we eat only one stuff at a meal, we wouldn't get nutritional deficiencies in the few hours before the next meal!

Our intellect is totally unable to tell what food are best for someone in a particular state at a given moment. Have you ever seen nutritionists fully agree between them? What is the meaning of “healthy food”? A food may be beneficial to someone in a certain amount but become harmful in a larger amount or to someone else.

Also, eating one food at a time will most likely cause nutritional deficiencies which increase hunger, and even increase hunger for subpar foods to try and compensate. In short, I don't put much stock in "instinct" because the environment around us is completely full of non-evolutionary stimuli. We are in a new "jungle" of food with an outdated taste navigation system that can never catch up without intellect filling the gaps.

Yes, we have to eliminate the “non-evolutionary stimuli” from our nutritional range. It means avoiding all the neolithic and modern foods.

Thanks for the discussion, I enjoy it!

[panacea]

How wild animals know what to eat varies a lot
I'd imagine for carnivores that typically eat fresh-killed animals, they hunt by the smells and sights of the live animals based on pheromones or just general scent, nothing to do with the specific scent of the meat under the hide. Typically they select the weak small ones (child or disabled) in a herd or flock to kill, hardly the most "optimum" but as in all of nature, they are limited by what's available.

If I had a ton of Cheetos (very unhealthy type of potato chip) and nothing else to eat, eventually after enough days even though I think Cheetos are disgusting, I'd eat them to fruitlessly stay from starvation. The same is true for raw meat or any other edible food. The longer I go without what my body wants nutritionally, the more open I am to new foods (good or bad). Using intellect we can try to select which foods are best, but we may be wrong. I don't believe that "bad" foods like cooked/processed fries and milkshakes etc cause my taste and smell to be out of whack, I think they alter what the brain is familiar to eating, and therefore what tastes familiar (safe/good) and what doesn't (weird/bad). If a new food has enough similarity to old food, even if it's a completely new food (for example: trying something which is not a chicken wing but tastes exactly like it with a similar consistency) the brain is more inclined to "like" it right from the start. Behaviorism > Instinct, even dogs that have been raised on non-raw meat pet food, and haven't scavenged and happened to eat wild kills while growing up almost always will not eat raw meat without training (mixing old food in with the new to trick them). All animals are subject to operant conditioning, but highly cultural animals like humans are vastly more impressionable by culture/others behavior and our own behavior feedback loop than any other type of animal. I've seen dogs walk right up to a raw steak and lick it and walk away as if it was worse than pet food, simply because their brain had been conditioned otherwise. Given enough time away from pet food of course they will eat it, 5 years later given enough time away from raw meat they will again eat pet food. In the wild, when you are not given pet or human food, you have starvation or you eat whats available. After you do that for awhile, you become accustomed to what's available in that local area, whether your parent animals fed you it as a baby or not.

The whole "instinctotherapie" thing seems to be a dangerous road where you only eat what "tastes" good at the current moment, when that has nothing to do with what is optimal, as all animals raised in captivity (humans included) are proof of (ignoring their natural food such as raw flesh for home-caged pet-feed dogs). There is transition food by "mixing" which tricks the animals into eating healthier without starving/fasting first, but no magical "intermediary" foods that are healthier but also different than what we're familiar with.