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

[Iguana]

The whole "instinctotherapie" thing seems to be a dangerous road(...) 

Yes, yes, very dangerous! 

A diet of beef, salmon plus 24 / 33 raw egg yolks per day is so much safer: it has been practiced successfully by hundreds of people during up to 50 years. Moreover,  several children have been born and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, so it's very well proven...     

[TylerDurden]

I would love for someone to do a study on offspring of people on long-term RVAF diets. I strongly suspect that the rate of birth-defects would be much lower for such people.

[panacea]

@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...

Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).

[cherimoya_kid]

@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...

Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).

If you are already aware of this, I apologize, but the general consensus among RAFers with years of experience is that the Instincto method is a good one, but it does tend to make people eat more sweet foods than they should, unless they are being careful. I eat mono-style, like Instinctos, but I don't go through a complex process of tasting and sniffing. I just sort of pay attention to my intuition.

I can tell when I've had too much fruit, or when I'm a little dehydrated, and I adjust accordingly. I think this is the way most long-time RAFers do it.

[eveheart]

I notice that the original poster asked his question in the Raw Paleo Diet to Suit You section, under Carnivorous/Zero Carb Approach, and his wording clearly stated his intent: "I've done some reading and I'm intrigued by the nutritional ketogenic diet, raw meat (zero carb) diet, and raw animal food diet principles, and want to combine them into an easy modern "'very low carb animal food diet.'"

He is not asking about your suggested alternative to low-carb. He is asking about his plan to get into ketosis, which can take a matter of a few days to a few weeks. There are some good suggestions on this thread, but they are lost in the mire of the anti-low carb comments.

@iguana, this is one of the ways that low-carb looks: engineered. There are more subtle ways of engineering, too. For example, you can buy a whole animal and eat it until it's done, with or without nibbling on random plant foods. Or, you can eat a lot of fish and seafood from a local fishmonger and rotate carbs strictly according to what is local and in season.

@TD, it really doesn't require "extra abilities" to eat low-carb. I run into many low-carb people at work, at the gym, at restaurants. I don't seek out these people. They are everywhere, so once you notice what someone is eating, it's just a matter of a casual "Oh? You too?" and a smile.

@GS, he explained why he was trying ketosis. Why tell him "How about you eat on instinct what you like from your current foods?" He's done some charting and observing, now he's got an idea to try. His macronutrient ratios are perfect for what he's trying to accomplish. It sounds like he's read a lot about ketosis, so he probably knows about preventing type 2 diabetes in the future by responding to the first signs of insulin resistance.

@CK, why should this discussion turn into one about instinctotherapie? If panacea had gone over to the Instincto Forum and posted some random rant, that would be one thing. But this is different.

[goodsamaritan]

I agree with Eveheart.

As much as we've made great inputs and great discussions.  A newbie may get lost.

Let's let the OP get on with his current experiment.  Maybe in a few months he will see this thread and make better sense of it in the future.

[cherimoya_kid]

After 15 years of raw foodism, I don't care what a newbie wants. He will try this, it will fail to whatever degree, and he will learn from that failure or not. But it will fail. Only a few people here really do well on such a low-carb regime long-term, and NOBODY does well on such a limited diet, long-term.

And that, sweet Eve, is that.

[eveheart]

He's hardly a newbie, and he's not saying that this is for the long run. I don't see the point in reading so much into a simple post.

[panacea]

@cherimoya_kid

What exactly is my proposed diet lacking?

I'm pretty sure it only lacks carbs, which are not necessary to the human body if ample fat and protein are provided (which they are).
Also where are you getting the idea that very low carb long-term has any negative implications, at all?

[Iguana]

@Iguana
If hundreds of people practicing a diet sucessfully for up to 50 years and several children have been born on it and have grown up into healthy adults on such a diet, then the typical SAD american diet would be very well proven to be safe...

The SAD is a disaster! Most people on a standard diet become sick, obese, have bone malformations, dental caries and could barely survive without medicine!

Instinctotherapie relies on familiarity of taste, which largely doesn't apply to the modern environment of foods especially when first switching diets. Trying to hold on to "good tasting food" is only going to hinder someone from not finding an optimal diet, as they try to hold on to what they're familiar with. "Good tasting good" = substantial level of familiarity. If you are already familiar with healthy food, that isn't a problem, if you are not, it is a very dangerous "therapy" because it will lock you in to never really changing your diet drastically (which is needed for most people).

On the contrary, it always changes. And as a told you, some training with others, experienced ones is essential.

Anyway, you seem to know better than me what instinctotherapy is, so I'll leave you alone. Good luck with your Wallmart's eggs yolks diet! Please, don't forget to let us know the results after some months or, better, years. 

[TylerDurden]

I have found Instincto to work quite well for me. I have noticed some unusual changes in my body that have occurred after some time on this RPD diet. For example, on the rare occasions when I am forced to eat cooked foods, I generally vomit afterwards if I eat a lot of it, so I usually eat very little. It seems that my body instinctively reacts if I eat more than a small amount of cooked foods at one time.

[panacea]

After much thought, I've restructured my diet plan to the following (every day the same thing now for simplicity)

Every day:
12 raw egg yolks (646 calories)
12 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (540 calories)
1.6 oz raw beef fat (306 calories)
2.56 oz raw beef suet fat (620 calories)
0.5 raw salmon fillet (130 calories)

The vast majority of energy will come from fat still, but now the emphasis is on beef fat rather than yolk fat. Carbs are also reduced to 8 which only come from the yolks. I was amazed at how different the fat/protein ratio is between "beef fat" and "beef suet fat". Suet contains almost no protein, and beef fat contains quite a bit. I intend to mix both into the 80/20 raw ground beef to try and get it closer to 70/30 beef, or even 60/40.

One thing I'm concerned about is how hard some of the fat is, the grassfed beef fat (not rendered) and especially suet seem like they are too hard for human consumption at first taste, but that could just be the refrigerator (thawed in fridge for 4 days). I'm not too concerned about prolonged fridge storage of fat since it's mostly void of water and in airtight containers.

Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?

[eveheart]

Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?

I bought beef suet (the actual "kidney fat" or "caul fat" from around the kidneys) just once and never again. It was chalky and dense in my mouth. I ended up rendering it and making candles out of it.

My preference is back fat, which I can get from a friendly butcher who trims his roast from the rump end of the grass fed beef and saves me some. It lasts forever stored uncovered on a plate or hook in the fridge. I chew it and swallow the fat that is released and warmed by chewing. When only connective tissue is left, I swallow that, too.

[TylerDurden]

I have no idea why but whenever  I tried eating raw, organic, grassfed beef suet , I would seemingly not properly digest it and get horrid yellow stools soon afterwards, sort of like diarrhea. I have no idea why this is. As regards raw animal  fat, I far prefer raw tongue or raw marrow or the white fat on raw leg of lamb etc., they  just taste better. Other, luckier RVAF dieters have access to raw fat via raw fish eggs. Raw zero-carbers, though, often  just love the taste of raw suet and consider it an essential component of their diet.

[goodsamaritan]

Somebody point me to how this calorie counting works.
I never ever tried counting.

[eveheart]

Somebody point me to how this calorie counting works.
I never ever tried counting.

I'm not sure what "this" calorie counting you are talking about. In general, it is possible to quantify the amount of food a person eats in terms of kcal of energy contained in the food. Each food is usually counted by the kcal of each macronutrient, and the tests are done in a laboratory, not in the human digestive system.

Once the calories are quantified, various dietary approaches are taken with the quantities. For example, I use food values to calculate the carbohydrate load of each meal so I can control how much insulin my body releases in response to carbohydrate intake. In other areas, daily kcal intake is counted to produce a caloric deficit, which is used often in weight loss, but has the side effect of slowing the metabolism and causing long-term weight gain. Body builders and heavy lifters often figure out various macronutrient needs to match their extreme workout schedule, particularly focusing on enough protein to prevent muscle loss.

It is good, when eating a low-carb diet to pay some attention to levels of macronutrients to avoid excesses in carbs and proteins. Many nutrient tables list macros, calories, vitamins, and minerals, but low-carb focuses on grams of macronutrients. As long as a person is eating enough food, calories are not counted for their own sake,

[TylerDurden]

I have always viewed calorie-counting as extremely dodgy. We are all different, with different metabolic rates due to personal circumstances etc., so that calorie-counting seems awfully orthorexic.

[panacea]

I'm not calorie counting, the calories listed in my diet plan are for ease of understanding where the energy comes from, since fat contains much more energy per gram than protein/carb. Calorie numbers help bring this to light. All I cared about in formulating the meal plan was grams of fat, protein, and carbs to maintain ketosis, not lose muscle mass (with a safety factor), and meet my energy needs (mostly through dietary fat).

[panacea]

I've been reading other peoples complaints about eating a lot of "raw meat" and have concluded it must be because they are not eating enough fat. We must remember that lean beef, especially 90/10 lean beef, is extremely devoid of fat you'd find in the natural carcass. I went searching for this information and apparently the ratio of fat to lean beef in an average carcass is 30.5% fat and 69.5% beef, this ratio is in pounds of the animal carcass.

However what is not clear is if this "490 pounds of boneless trimmed beef" is trimmed to be 100% beef and 0% fat, or if it is 90/10, 80/20, 70/30. I'm sure it varies based on the cut of meat, but just about every cut of meat has some fat. Is this fat added to the total pounds of "fat trim", or not? I suspect not. If the latter is the case, then the percentage of fat is even higher than calculated (by about 49 pounds at least). If the latter is correct, then the average cow carcass actually contains more energy from fat than protein. IF that is correct, then it should not be hard to imagine why eating a disproportionate amount of protein from raw meat without the raw cow fat to go along with it causes problems in the long run, especially since high protein diets can kick you in and out of ketosis just like low-carb diets. I don't like low-carb diets, I only like very-low-carb diets, because you aren't rollercoastering in and out of ketosis in those.

So, to summarize:  A 1200 steer, ½ inch fat, average muscling, yields a 750 pound carcass.  The 750 pound carcass yields approximately:
490 pounds boneless trimmed beef
150 pounds fat trim
110 pounds bone
- See more at: http://igrow.org/livestock/beef/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-from-a-fed-steer/#sthash.IPrVs65Z.dpuf

[cherimoya_kid]

Yuri had severe problems on low-carb. It can be very taxing on the adrenals, depending on the person.

[goodsamaritan]

After much thought, I've restructured my diet plan to the following (every day the same thing now for simplicity)

Every day:
12 raw egg yolks (646 calories)
12 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (540 calories)
1.6 oz raw beef fat (306 calories)
2.56 oz raw beef suet fat (620 calories)
0.5 raw salmon fillet (130 calories)

The vast majority of energy will come from fat still, but now the emphasis is on beef fat rather than yolk fat. Carbs are also reduced to 8 which only come from the yolks. I was amazed at how different the fat/protein ratio is between "beef fat" and "beef suet fat". Suet contains almost no protein, and beef fat contains quite a bit. I intend to mix both into the 80/20 raw ground beef to try and get it closer to 70/30 beef, or even 60/40.

One thing I'm concerned about is how hard some of the fat is, the grassfed beef fat (not rendered) and especially suet seem like they are too hard for human consumption at first taste, but that could just be the refrigerator (thawed in fridge for 4 days). I'm not too concerned about prolonged fridge storage of fat since it's mostly void of water and in airtight containers.

Does anyone else around here eat raw beef fat or suet without any heating above room temperature? Any things to watch out for?

Genuine curiosity... how did you come up with the calories you needed to consume?

Can you show the math?  Is it your weight and activities you do?

[eveheart]

Yuri had severe problems on low-carb. It can be very taxing on the adrenals, depending on the person.

In large-scale studies, the various hormonal problems with low-carb diets are often linked to low-carb/low-calorie diets. That shows up a lot in the Atkins weight-loss groups, where eager dieters try to race each other by losing a zillion pounds in record time. There are various cycling strategies to avoid hormonal problems from caloric restriction during ketosis, such as Dave Asprey's "refeeding" concept, which is used in his Bulletproof Diet, but that approach is a variation of low-carb, and it doesn't purport to be a ketogenic diet, although some people use it that way.

[cherimoya_kid]

In large-scale studies, the various hormonal problems with low-carb diets are often linked to low-carb/low-calorie diets. That shows up a lot in the Atkins weight-loss groups, where eager dieters try to race each other by losing a zillion pounds in record time. There are various cycling strategies to avoid hormonal problems from caloric restriction during ketosis, such as Dave Asprey's "refeeding" concept, which is used in his Bulletproof Diet, but that approach is a variation of low-carb, and it doesn't purport to be a ketogenic diet, although some people use it that way.

Yuri wasn't restricting calories. He was very active, and should probably have been eating more often, but any diet that needs this many caveats already should be approached carefully. Sure, it's been a lifesaver for you, Lex, and Saber, but it was a clusterfuck for Geoff and Yuri.

[eveheart]

Yuri wasn't restricting calories. He was very active, and should probably have been eating more often, but any diet that needs this many caveats already should be approached carefully. Sure, it's been a lifesaver for you, Lex, and Saber, but it was a clusterfuck for Geoff and Yuri.

If low-carb has been a lifesaver for some, why not let this thread focus on how-to rather than better not? Panacea has been posting on this board for years now, so I'm sure he's read the threads discussing low-carb problems by some members. However, since he has said that he's the type who benefits from low-carb, I would rather not see all these tangents to an otherwise on-topic discussion.

[panacea]

"Yuri had problems on low-carb"

OK, my diet isn't low-carb, it's very-low-carb, to remain in nutritional ketosis 24/7. "Low carb" can mean 60g of carb a day all at once which can easily send someone out of ketosis, make them go back into "keto flu" symptoms and shock the body like a rollercoaster over and over again if repeated. Very-low-carb diets, nutritional ketogenic diets, aka really approaching zero-carb diets let you adapt to a ketogenic metabolism one time and remain adapted. This isn't "complicated", it's simple - don't eat anything high in carbs and don't eat a lot of carbs or protein all at once. Eat moderate protein and enough fat for daily energy needs. Where my engineered diet differs from most is that I chose only high quality animal foods, but more diverse than just beef, rather than any plant foods, spices, etc. at all. Also it is strictly raw, not heated past room temperature in any way, and minimally processed (such as butchering).

Most "keto" dieters I read about on the internet use cooked food like bacon, eat avocados (plant food plus high in carb), etc. As the "bear" said, uprooting your familiar diet is almost impossible for most unless you have a strong motivation to do so. My motivation happens to be how much better I can think and how much longer I can work while on a ketogenic diet (felt horrible on high carb in contrast, always thinking about food or the bathroom or sleep). I need to be able to focus on what I love which is inventing new programming routines, which requires almost constant mental "daydreaming" or imagination. Better health through ketogenic dieting gives me more access to that, I believe that a raw high quality animal food keto diet will give me even more access to those energy levels, and is a strong motivator, but it's still damn hard to change.

Genuine curiosity... how did you come up with the calories you needed to consume?

It was calculated based on my age, height, body weight, and approximate percentage of body fat I have using http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/
I'm sedentary (CAD worker/programmer), 25 yrs old, 6'8" tall, approx. 200 lbs and 18% body fat. I planned for a "maintenance" diet. Calories had 0 to do with it, only grams of fat, protein, and carbs mattered.